By Vurdlak on October 24, 2012, with 151 Comments
Gabriele and Vid both pointed me at the same time to this recent photo of buildings located somewhere in Egypt. With its original title “The building I thought was in front is actually behind the other one“, question I’m about to ask comes naturally – so which one do you think is actually standing in front of the other? Who knows, perhaps there are some of our Egyptian friends among us, who can confirm our findings!
(133 votes)
Beware The Purple Nurple
Chalk Drawing That Won Guinness
Psychedelic Screen-melt Illusion
Escher’s Waterfall Brought to Life
Thoughts On Future of The Web…
Tears of Mother Earth Illusion
Best Optical Illusion EVER!
Spinning Sihouette Optical Illusion
The Hidden Tiger Illusion
Crossing Circles Illusion
Rob Gonsalves Magic Realism Illusions
Dragon Illusion
Copyright © 2006 - 2011 · Mighty Optical Illusions · Submit Illusion · About · RSS · Privacy Policy · Advertise · Log in ·
WoW……. one of the BEST illusions I HAVE EVER SEEN………… PERSPECTIVE ILLUSION….. GREAT
I can easily see both being in front. Based on the light I would guess the bright one to be in the front…
Neither. They’re actually side by side, the picture was just taken at an angle to cause it to look like one is in front of the other.
OOPS! I MENT ??????
Get your grammar right lol
I find “natural” illusions like this one so much more interesting than drawings, paintings and similar.
same!
They grey one is in front.
Definetley the grey one because some of the brown ones’ windows are cut off….
The gray ( left )
Grey is in Front
Well clearly the grey building on the left is in front (you can see all the balconies) – but is is an interesting effect
Definitely the building on the left (darker building) you can tell from the windows – those from the building on the left end completely while those from the building on the right don’t
Very neat photo.
The building on the left must be the one in front. About midway down the photo you can see a satellite dish on a balcony of the building on the left, which is clearly in front of the building on the right. If you focus on that one spot, it’s obvious. But even knowing that fact, the buildings still swap places visually for me every few seconds.
LEFT!
Well, that one’s confusing!
The one on the left has a consistent outline. The one on the right doesn’t. ;)
1st post & defo the grey building
opsie not 1st post :L
how odd. I thought buildings in Egypt would be more pointy.
If you look at both the top few floors and the bottom few floors, it’s obvious that the building on the left is in front. At no time do the concrete extensions at each floor of the left one get occluded by the building on the right. After a bit more study, it’s also clear that you’re only seeing a fraction of the leftmost windows of the brighter building.
This one is driving me crazy! Does anyone have the answer?
call me maybe
Wouldn’t it depend from which angle you were viewing the two buildings?
The grey one for sure…
Hi, I’m Egyptian and I saw this before, the building on the left is the one in front.
the left one is in front the right one!
The gray building is. I can see where it is covering windows on the brown building.
Looks pretty obvious to me that the grey building is in the front.
the grey one is in front
Clearly the building on the left is in the foreground.
Typically dealing with the issues of light and shadow, objects in the foreground are usually lighter. In this case it is clear that the building on the left is likely photographed from its north side (or side away from the sun). The building on the right is further from the camera, but out of the shadow of the grey building. Helping this “illusion” further is the fact that the brown building’s shadow side appears lighter than the grey building’s.
The final key is taking a closer look at the balconies on both buildings where they meet in the photo. The foreground building’s balconies are all visible whereas the background building’s are not.
It appears obvious that the grey building is in front, or closer to the viewer. The corners are clearly in front of the view of the brown bldg.
There is no way the brown bldg shows anything in front of the grey one.
Pretty neat. You can tell the grey building is infront because the windows are bigger and the edge never changes.
easy, the one on the left.
The grey one is in front.
They’re standing next to eachother. The gray flat building is closest.
It has to be the one on the left. You can see the clean lines of its corner over some of the windows of the building on the right.
I have finally decided that the black building is on one side of a street and the tan on is on the other with the black in the foreground. The black building’s projections look more natural than if the tan building was in front.
The gray one, obviously.
The one on the right, too easy
I blew it, the correct one is on the left! I just had to look a little closer.
The grey one is in front
The Grey one on the left is in front. You can tell this by looking at the windows on the tan colored bld. on the left side of the bld. the windows get smaller as you go higher. look close at the windows and you can tell for yourself.
the grey one is in front. I could tell right away.
where is my prize?
I’ll be waiting.
at first i was sure it was the one on the right. then i was sure it was the left one.
After comeparing the a/c sizes, it’s got to be the right one. IMHO
I’m pretty sure the gray one is in front. Nice illusion.
the dark one is in front, am i right?
Hmmmm..I can’t say for sure which one is in front but I’ll guess its the gray building. Very nice illusion.
Why did you delete my comment?
Nevermind…weird..now it’s showing.
I think that the one on the right because you can see the right side of the building ?
‘
a close look at the balconies shows that the building on the left is in front. this is only interesting because it looks like the building on the right is in the front. the point is that this is a great example of how lighter images precede and darker ones recede. something for graphic arts folks to keep in mind. but, they probably already know it.
Funny picture ! The left building is in the front as you can see the whole of its right side. Half of the other buildings windows are covered by the left one.
mrs luke
I have a fear of large buildings. This photo scared me!
Also, you can count 16 floors on the left building, 17 on the right. Less floors, closer….
Neither. They side by side. I looked at this when there were no posts and decided the left was the answer.
Today I noticed that the POV was in front of the “grey” left building and the sun was coming from behind and shinning on the side of the “brown” building. Note the shadows on the right side of the balconies.
Given the POV, the grey building would cover the back of the brown building even if the are side by side.
Possible?
wow, I totally thought wrong at first. I think it’s because are brain goes for the brightest items because they look like the sun is bouncing off it and the darkest ones look shadowy.
I’m pretty confident the building on the left is in front.
the left one (the grey )… the air condition on the golden building u can see that they are cut and some of them are behind the the grey one ;)
I honestly don’t see how anyone can be confused by this. The one on the left is unquestionably in front of the one on the right. I don’t even really get how it can be confusing… at the most basic level, things that are in front of other things, block (cover) them from view… The building on the left is clearly blocking view of the building on the right and it’s in no way confusing to the natural human brain. Am I missing something?
The black building is first
look for the satellite dish of the grey building :)
the gray one is in front. look at the corners nearer the top you’ll notice that gray is overlapping brown. to me its quite obvious.
%100 agree with you lewac
i find the gray/ darker building being in front only because the shapes of the two buildings is more known for the gray building to have cuts like that the lighter one really doesnt have the right shape the brightness makes you think the brighter buildings in front
The fact some of the windows in the light-brown one are partly hidden reveals that one is on the back.
But it took me a while to figure it out and it’s a really mind-bending casual illusion
I would say it’s taken from a perspective. That they are lined up beside eachother, with a gap between (An alleyway if you want)
The one on the left is in front. You can tell because there is a satellite dish right in the middle of the photo coming off the building on the left.