Dad Takes His Daughters To Magical Worlds

Dad Takes His Daughters To Magical Worlds
Barcroft Media

John Wilhelm is computer-savvy dad who uses his skills to make his young daughters the stars of brilliantly surreal pictures featuring octopus attacks and dolls on the operating table.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that the Internet was marvelling at animator dad Daniel Hashimoto's incredible special effects videos of his 'superhero' toddler. And now another dad has used his Photoshop prowess to make his kids' playtime unforgettable.

IT consultant and digital hobbyist John Wilhelm manipulates photos to create quirky fairytale portraits that show the girls appearing to operate on a doll in full surgical gear, drive a convertible, or gnaw through a tree trunk with oversized rabbit chompers.

The stars of his weird and wonderful pictures are his three daughters - Lou, five, Mila, two, and six-month-old Yuna. In one picture, Lou appears to be lifting an enormous barbell weight, while another sees her being held upside-down by an octopus in the bath.

Daniel spends hours digitally enhancing the photos to create the incredibly convincing new pictures. "I'm not a professional but I've got a professional attitude," he explains on his website.

"Most of my images are heavily manipulated but not all of them are compositions," he told the Daily Express. "What I really love is to bring different images together to create something completely new."

Wilhelm, who is based in Bern, Switzerland, also makes photos featuring his wife, Judith, as well as a series that turns his off-kilter lens on the animal kingdom - but he says his favourite subjects are his girls.

But do his young muses ever get bored of helping dad with his eccentric hobby?

"If you have a healthy emotional connection to your kids, they can feel something is really important to you and then they cooperate," Wilhelm says. "And if they don't there are still sweets and candies..."

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