opticalillusion

Photographer Captures ‘Space Photos’ in Parking Lot Gasoline Puddles

Finnish photographer Juha Tanhua has been shooting an unusual series of "space photos." While the work may look like astrophotography images of stars, galaxies, and nebulae, they were actually captured with a camera pointed down, not up. Tanhua created the images by capturing gasoline puddles found on the asphalt of parking lots.

I Shoot Snow Portraits by Sticking My Face Into Snow

My Snow Portrait series consists of photos taken using a technique I "invented" 8 years ago that utilizes the "hollow mask" 3D optical illusion. All the shots in this article are imprints of my face in fairly deep snow lit from underneath, almost like a lithophane. No Photoshop. No filters.

These Surreal Photos Were All Created Without Photoshop

Photographer John Dykstra says he believes in the power of perspective. His surreal photo style is created entirely with practical effects and simple ingredients -- things like paint, chalk, and glass -- rather than digital image manipulation techniques.

Vanity Fair Gives Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Extra ‘Leg’ and Hand

Vanity Fair just unveiled its latest Hollywood issue, which features a cover photo of 12 Hollywood stars captured by photographer Annie Leibovitz. But people are talking about the photos today for all the wrong reasons: the cover photo (shown above) appears to show Reese Witherspoon with a 3rd leg and another photo definitely shows Oprah with a 3rd hand.

This Guy is a Master of Mind-Bending Camera Illusions

Back in May, artist Kevin Parry released a viral illusion video of himself walking into a mirror in a forest and emerging out the other side. If you liked that one, check out Parry's new video above featuring a compilation of many similar illusions.

This Photo Has No Red Pixels: A Fascinating Optical Illusion

I initially refused to believe it when this photo came across my feed. My eyes aren't broken! I can see they're strawberries, and they're definitely red. They have to be trolling us with this image, right?

This Freerunning Video Uses Perspective and Optical Illusions to Mess With Your Head

Professional free runner Jason Paul recently teamed up with Red Bull to create this wild optical illusion video that you have to see to believe -- or not. The video’s description says that “Life as a free runner means the world is your playground… or is it just one big illusion?” It's a mind-bending visual experience that will have your brain questioning reality.

What Color is This Dress? Is it Under or Over Exposed?

What colors do you see in this dress? Is it an underexposed photo of a white and gold dress, or is it an overexposed photo of a black and blue dress? It seems everyone has a different opinion on these questions, and this photo has seemingly become the most talked about thing on social media over the past day.

Yovo Photo Sharing App Uses Slatted Fence Optical Trick to Prevent Screenshots

In the ongoing app battle to keep private photos safe and sound from unintended recipients (and the general public), a new app called Yovo – You Only View Once – brings an interesting technology to the table.

It's called D-fence, and is based around the idea that your eyes can see what's behind a slatted fence as you're driving by at a high speed.

Behind the Scenes of OK Go’s Viral Optical Illusion-Packed Single Take Music Video

Indie rock band OK Go's recent music video for the song "The Writing's On the Wall" was a smash hit, receiving some 6.6K likes on PetaPixel alone and currently boasting over 7.6M views on YouTube.

But just in case the claim that it was all shot in a single take without any cuts has you skeptical, the band yesterday released a spellbinding behind-the-scenes video to show you how the optical illusion magic was made.

Artist Creates Incredible ‘Melting’ Sculpture Illusion Using Strobes and Still Images

What you see in the video above is a real sculpture that does, in fact, look as if it is perpetually melting right before your eyes. But while creating the exact sculpture took months of design and engineering work, the photographic technique behind it was invented as long ago as 100 BC.

What you're looking at is a three-dimensional "zoetrope," an animation device that created the illusion of motion using lighting effects or a sequence of still images (in this case, it's a mix of clever sculpting and well-timed strobes).

Photographer Captures a Soccer Player Looking Extremely Small

Reuters photographer Yves Herman captured this peculiar photograph at a match between the Belgian and French national soccer teams yesterday. The photograph has attracted the Internet's attention due to the fact that it makes 28-year-old soccer player Mathieu Valbuena look like a child playing among men.

Photographs of Wooden Beams Matching the Lines of Buildings

Swiss photographers Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs (yes, the ones who created a large format camera out of books) have a clever series of photos that uses wooden beams to play around with a few things photographers often think about: lines, angles, and perspective.

For each of the photos, the duo constructed a structure of wooden beams that blends in with buildings in the background from the perspective of the camera. The resulting scene looks as though the wood magically connects the lines of the buildings with the foreground.

‘Say Cheese’ Camera Tattoo Turns Girl’s Forearm into an Optical Illusion

We've shared a number of photography-inspired tattoos in the past, but here's a concept we've never seen before. Brunssum, Netherlands-based tattoo artist Helma van der Weide created this optical illusion tattoo for her daughter Lotte van den Acker's forearm. All Lotte needs to do to show off her passion for photography is cover up her eyes with her arm and voila! Instant photography!

Anamorphic Illusions Created Using High-Res Prints of Photos

YouTube illusion and science channel Brusspup recently did an anamorphic illusion project in which he photographed a few random objects resting on a piece of paper (e.g. a Rubik's cube, a roll of tape, and a shoe), skewed them, printed them out as high-resolution prints, and then photographed them at an angle to make the prints look just like the original objects.

Creative Photos of Fruits and Veggies Cut and Arranged into Geometric Shapes

The photograph above may look like it shows a photo of apples mounted to a wall, but it actually shows real apples that were packed into a neat little square. Turkish artist and photographer Sakir Gökçebag has an entire series of photographs showing various fruits and vegetables carefully sliced up and placed into neat arrangements.