Not a unique case, either.
The Freepers are tracking several other examples of this. Here's another one.
The one problem I have is that the copying is so bloody obvious that it's hard to credit that he was trying to actually pull this off as original work, or at least some kind of "interpretation" of photos. However, I have not seen that he has credited anyone else with the original images.
If you go on e-bay, you can see a number of artworks that are definitely images I have seen before as old photos. How can he possibly be trying to pass that off as anything other than tracings? I don't get it.