Well, it's not really an optical illusion, but it's quite cool.

Does it have something to do with the blurring? It really looks like a model.

is it real?

Awesome!

stunning. absolutely stunning!
how do they do it?!

how is this not an optical illusion?
love these!

Agreed

I'd like to know the details of the camera/kit/lenses/technique he uses.

Well, it's not really cool, but it's quite an optical illusion.

Chicken
How is this not an optical illusion?
It looks like one thing, yet is something else.
Surely that is the definition of an optical illusion?

Fantastic ! They really look like toys

How to do it: http://www.freemacphoto.com/real-cities-made-small/

They are made with a tilt lens - the technique or ability to take such shots has been around for over 100 years with view cameras (the big ones with the upsidedown finders and the sheets'n'wotnot) -

The apparent illusion is that we are all used to associating very small depth of field with macro photography, with a tilt lens you are able to replicate this very narrow depth of field in non-macro photography ... (you are also able to make macro shots have a much larger DOF thereby making smaller thing look larger) - shift is another techinique with different but complimentary effects - hence, the tilt/shift lens ...

There would be no illusion without this condtioning

Thats how I learned how to do it with photoshop...

http://recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

they r all in real life

I just got back home after driving around for an hour cause some stupid German officials wouldn't let me in my house cause of some stupid parade! These illusions are cooland all, but somehow you can tell they are miniature. I don't know why.

He blurs out areas in a gradient from a "focal" point. This gives the impression that a macro lens is being used i.e. taking a picture of something very small on a high magnification which in turn makes the focal length smaller in proportion. A wide angle of anything gives a large focal area while zoom(magnification) gives a small area. Easy enough to do and very effective. J

These are really marvelous. I really love these. Years ago, I used to take two photographs side-by-side, sometimes aerial, so they could be viewed stereoscopically. They would look very similar to these, only in 3-D. I got the idea as a reversal effect to what I'd already been doing with miniature models, by taking side-by-side shots very close together to make them look big in stereoscopic viewing. 3-D photography of any kind was very big as a specialty genre back then. Maybe, when Olivio is up taking pics or at any level like street level or indoors, he can take two side-by-side pics as he does them here with the lens to have them combined in steroscoping viewing to enhance the effect.

im having a hard time believing the third photo down is a real photo of a real city. the road looks way too smooth and even. as in there are no cracks or blotches of color. the others, however, seem very real.

thats Rubbish!!!!!!!!
on most if you loookat the people or the buildings you can soooooo tell thy are models!