This is an unretouched photograph. We have seen laptops done to death, but here is a excellently done cell phone. To quote the artist, "This was so much more difficult to do than the laptop screen!"
This is one of those optical Illusions that once you have identified what is in the picture you will always, immediately, see that object. However if you have never seen this image before it may take you quite a while to see what is before your eyes. You may never see it until someone says what it is or points it out.
I originally saw this on Coach Burke's site.
The below peacock has some illusion of motion in it but what I find most fascinating is that when you follow a row of circles from left to right they might appear indented then somewhere in the process the exact same circles seem as if they are protruding. Sometimes they seem the same all the way but when you start at the opposite end they have magically flipped. For further explanation go here.
In the United States Memorial Day is a day set aside to honor those who have fallen in battle. The below is a photo mosaic of President Bush's face, formed with the images of fallen American soldiers.
The artist had this to say about his Mosaic.
This paragraph is particularly noteworthy:
I'd also like to point out that 'War President' is an image. It is not a textual statement or rhetorical argument. An image is like an empty room and any message that one reads in that room necessarily came in the baggage one carried when one walked in the door.
Some people may react to this anomalous motion optical illusion and if you think you might be one of these people it is important to read the caution at the top of this page prior to proceeding.
I love the motion in this optical illusion. It is definitely one that you should sit down for before viewing. The quadrants can't seem to determine which way they want to go..
Bruster's real ice cream says, "treat yourself to something real"
This optical Illusion is the creation of Herman J. Verwaal of Exloo, Netherlands. This is part of his "Impossible Construction" series.
Below it is easy to see the fish on a dish, but can you make out the girl in the picture as well?
Follow up, Earlier this week I had The 2nd annual "Best Visual Illusion of the Year" contest winner. Many of you wanted to know who won the first contest. Well I have been in touch with the winner and he gave me permission to show this illusion here.
The winners of 1st annual "Best Visual Illusion of the Year" contest are Arthur Shapiro and Justin Charles, Department of Psychology, Bucknell University, USA
The below optical illusion presents the illusion of motion. This is accomplished by combining building blocks. In the examples below the blocks that are connected together are in the shape of diamonds, squares or rectangles. Each block is constant and does not change shape. In some presentations the center color is modulated but the edges stay constant. In another the center color stays constant but the edges change colors. Read more about this here.
Here is a quote from the explanation that clarifies some of the below illusions.
"We present four ways of combining the elemental conditions : House of Cards (center modulation), Lucy in the Sky (center modulation, with changes in relative phase of modulation across individual elements), Caterpillar (edge modulation in color, showing that the effect is determined by the luminance of the edges), and the Tilt illusion (center modulation, with ramped edges)."The bottom line is that all blocks in the chain of illusions are a constant size and shape. The perceived motion of the images is just an optical illusion. You can view many more examples and explanations by going to the author's site.
About the contest
"The contest is a celebration of the ingenuity and creativity of the world’s premier visual illusion research community. Visual illusions are those perceptual experiences that do not match the physical reality. Our perception of the outside world is generated indirectly by brain mechanisms, and so all visual perception is illusory to some extent. The study of visual illusions is therefore of critical importance to the understanding of the basic mechanisms of sensory perception, as well as to cure many diseases of the visual system. The visual illusion community includes visual scientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, and visual artists that use a variety of methods to help discover the neural underpinnings of visual illusory perception."
In the spirit of Maxwell Smart, would you believe...
"I took this photo at Olana, the home of 19th Century artist Frederick Church. Church was one of the founders of the Hudson River School of Art, which was known for its dreamy pastoral scenes. I'm always on the lookout for compositions that are out of the ordinary. This is one of my favorites because it makes you look twice. The illusion of weightlessness, by a heavy chain and ring against a solid tile surface, gives the image a surreal feel to it."See more at his photo gallery.
This ad campaign for Veja Magazine not only combined words to make images but also won a Gold and two Silvers in the 2004 Clio awards.
The 2nd annual "Best Visual Illusion of the Year" contest is over and the winner is in (see the first years winner here). This year it is Max R. Dürsteler, Dep. of Neurology, University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland.
About the contest
"The contest is a celebration of the ingenuity and creativity of the world’s premier visual illusion research community. Visual illusions are those perceptual experiences that do not match the physical reality. Our perception of the outside world is generated indirectly by brain mechanisms, and so all visual perception is illusory to some extent. The study of visual illusions is therefore of critical importance to the understanding of the basic mechanisms of sensory perception, as well as to cure many diseases of the visual system. The visual illusion community includes visual scientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, and visual artists that use a variety of methods to help discover the neural underpinnings of visual illusory perception."
My 9 year old son looked at this image and quickly deduced what the mystery was about the strange image he was seeing. Me, well let's just say it took me a while longer to arrive at the same conclusion he did.
So "What on Earth" do you see in this picture?
How close in do you think Bruce Almighty had to pull the Moon for the artist to snap this wonderful picture?
The nature of this optical illusion is to paint a grey scale image using only your eyes.
I originally saw an illusion that put an afterimage into a photo here and here. I also realized the importance of having a swappable background here, and found an illusion to add color to a B&W image here. All of these items combined inspired me to get off my butt and put this post together. I created another illusion here.
1. Pick an image with some color, preferably something everyone would recognize. For this demonstration I picked a nice public domain image of a Monarch Butterfly.
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The photographer didn't realize until he got home that the foot prints looked as if they were raised. After experimenting he found that rotating the image 180 degrees caused them to look as expected.
These fine rock creations are the art work of Bill Dan of San Francisco, California. The title above suggests that these rocks are balanced, just sitting there waiting for someone to topple them over. What do you think? When you are done pondering how this was accomplished you can click the link below the picture.
The below picture was the Astronomy Picture of the Day for April 24, 2006 (via). I have placed it here because the photo provides an imaginative illusion of a sunset. How can you get the stars so bright with the sun still hanging low in the sky? The truth is you can't unless your Ulrich Beinert and refuse to accept the laws of nature.
The complete explanation of this picture follows below and has been quoted from the APOD archive.
Explanation: The clouds in the foreground are much different than the clouds in the background. In the foreground are a photogenic deck of Earth-based water clouds. The long exposure used to create the above photograph makes the light from the left, reflected from Phoenix, Arizona, USA, appear like a sunset. Far in the distance, however, are star clouds from the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy. Billions of stars like our Sun live there, circling our Galactic center every 200 million years. Contrast between the water clouds and the star clouds has been digitally enhanced. Between the two, visible on the upper right, is the planet Jupiter.
I love this picture. Glancing at it makes you wonder what trick the photographer used to get this effect. Then you notice the clouds in the background and realize that it's nature that is playing games with your head this time.
I love the colors and motion in this illusion. Excellent work Zunehmen!
"Caution! Prolonged exposure may cause disorientation. Do not operate heavy equipment while viewing this image."
This illusion of flowers blowing in the wind seems appropriate for the month of May in North America. The breeze must be blowing how else can you explain the apparent motion of the flowers?
Earlier, I started a series by Miwa Miwa (1, 2) who very generously granted me permission to feature his work here. The below image is called Flowers and has an illusion of motion.
When the results of the experiment were analyzed the Z-machine had generated a temperature in excess of two billion degrees Kelvin. The scientist's first impression was total disbelief.
"At first, we were disbelieving," said project leader Chris Deeney. "We repeated the experiment many times to make sure we had a true result."3.6 billion degrees Fahrenheit is hotter then the interior of our sun which punched the thermometer at a cool 15 million degrees Kelvin. The kicker in all this is that it seems that the energy out was more then was put in, plus the temperature was sustained 10 nanoseconds longer then should have been possible. They don't know why but they think something new is going on here. (read more)
The photographer has one question.
Can you guess what this is?
It looks like a lot of things but I never would have guessed this correctly.
This illusion was created by David MacDonald. He describes the process,
"All my images are made the same way. I create a "matrix" in CorelDRAW according to strict rules of perspective, except for the false connections. This is then brought into Photo-Paint where it is "rendered" with purpose-taken, digitally photographed textures and objects. A print-out of the matrix is used as a reference guide during photography to help ensure that the objects are photographed with the correct point of view to fit."This illusion took "in the region of sixty purpose taken photographs."
Here is a natural camouflage illusion. At first glance it is hard to see then it just pops out at you.
He took an idea we have seen many times and went one step further with it. Excellent work!
Here is a photo that has not been manipulated in any way. It is amazing how the flower seems to float in midair. (via)
"To give an answer on the question how I did it. Simple sunlight, white paper, a glass vase, a tiny flower and a little observation and improvisation. The sun shines through the vase adding lightbeams on the paper and that gives an extra dimension on the mini flower. That`s all. I hope my English is good enough to make it understandable. :)"
This is like the 6 or 7 cubes illusion. Depending on how you look at things the bricks could be jutting out in either the left or right direction. More to the point was this photo taken looking up at the wall or looking down at the wall?
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