November 17, 2009 by Vurdlak with 339 Comments
"Afghan Girl" by Steve McCurry
Probably all of you saw this picture at some point of your life. Titled the “Afghan Girl”, this photo was named the most recognized photograph in the history of National Geographic. Although girl’s name was not known, her picture appeared on the June 1985 cover of the magazine. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyes staring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. Gula was known throughout the world simply as the Afghan Girl until she was formally identified in early 2002.
Over time, many variations of Steve McCurry’s original photo appeared. At some point even in optical illusion form, as we see below. All I could find about this illusion, is that people can’t seem to look at it for too long. Apparently you get a headache, or become nervous at best. Maybe this isn’t the true nature of this illusion, but it just didn’t make me hallucinate like some other animations did. Wait few seconds for the animation to load (it’s 1MB big), and share your experience afterward.
(112 votes)
Uhh..this may sound funny but i got high a lil’ bit on this one lol since im sleepy :o
i get extremly nervous
I think it’s cool; I don’t get nervous or anything, the lines start to move when I stare at it. COOL (:
Maby it’s because i’m drunk, but this has no effect on me. I stared at it for ages. It’s actually kinda fun.
How long do ya have to stare at it? I did for a good couple minutes or more and nothing. Maybe I was focusing too much on how the circles were moving and not zoned out enough to get the full effect?
ya um i stared 20 minutes my eyes dried up some but thats all.
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
Look at her upper nose. It’s like she turns and looks at you.
Sorry to kill all your hopes and dreams, but its obvious that the lines are ACTUALLY moving. Look at the thumbnail at the top of the page. It’s just smaller version, but those lines aren’t moving.
umm
my eyes straded to water and then i felt pain in my right ear =]
but it is so cool
i got a boner
wow…, nice….
@Shelby… the lines are meant to be ‘actually’ moving, that’s why it’s called an animation.
that afgan girl is so strage it was like something was hidden behind her eyes… SPOOKY
wow……. freeky
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^ that ‘cool’ guy is an idiot .. T_T its an animation! i mean like come on! u can srsly distinguish moving from ’stil standing optical illusions’ …omg ..and ofcourse ud get nervous! when u stare at it the image in ur mind may change what u say and maybe ur starting to see the … devil? differences (obviously) from person to person….
Hahaha i saved this pic and its a .gif file and files like that usually move that explains why the lines move
It felt relaxing to me.
it’s weird. the longer you stare, the more contorted ‘Girls’ face becomes. until you you shake it off anyway…
I stared at this the first time and pretty quickly after a few seconds the whole picture seemed to distort into blurs of it;s basic colours, with red rings everywhere, except for the eyes, they stayed perfectly clear.
After reading some fo the comment to make sure I was doing it right, I stared at the bridge of her nose and I started to getantsy, and then the girl seemed to turn around and face me. It was really freaky.
Awesome pic!
Yeah, her right eye (on the left of the picture) is radiating outwardly, so as to appear as slowly getting larger, and the other is irradiating inward, so as to appear as slowly getting smaller. I’m fairly sure the desired effect of this illusion was to make it seem like her head is slowly turning to our right, but it doesn’t work very well
it reminded me of the snake in the movie Jungle Book
That was awesome, reminds of the times i worked in pakistan. I’ve worked in many places in the world (Africa, Nepal, india, Thailand, El salvador) but i have to say, without a doubt, that I find the peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan to be the most beautiful and unique peoples in the world!
It was hard for me to focus my eyes on the image. The animation kept going on blurry on me.
If you look on the forehead (bout 1cm above her eye lvl) you can see a third source of waves, and since its not as prominent as the two sources located on the eyes you may not notice it, and those waves might confuse you
I looked at it for a couple min then let my eyes blur. Seems there’s a 3rd circle at work there expanding outwards. It’s close to the middle of her forehead, kind of like a 3rd eye.
LOLZ! Stare in the eyes and the thing beocmes so dense it nervouses otherwise its just lolz for the hypnotad.
gaaahhh it gave me a fucking headache >0<
I don’t get it. What’s the illusion here? It’s just a photo with some lame animation on top of it…that’s not an illusion…
Wow, that was freaky.
I stared at her lips, and her eyes seemed to wink or disappear.
At one point I got her to look like a red skeleton.
I second the “ear ache” comment, however mine was the left ear. Not to mention, got pretty nervous, as well. Won’t be looking at that again!
ok -_-” this is actually moving LOL
its not a jpeg format its an animated picture
of course it makes u dizzy LOL
yeah!… stare at the girl’s EYES!!…. something will MOVE… this is neat!… LOL hehehe ^_^ im looking forward for more optical photos… ^_^
nice .. !! its moving and seems like she is staring at me too … !!
it scares me. she scares me. like she’s still out there, standing there, and she has a secret she’s trying to you with her eyes. i looked at her nose, and it looked like she became a old woman. whenever i look at her eyes i feel like at any second she’s gonna scream at me and her face will turn into a hideous banshee, i guess it’s the freakish beauty. she’s amazing and complex, and i love this one.
purely amazing. she is amazing.
IT WON’T STOP SPINNING!
its scary
fake, it isn’t a illusion, is a gif