Artist who goes under the nickname of “smsilton” captured this amazing image after about two hours of attempts. All in all, he said that it probably took him about 150 shots to get it right.

If you were wondering what kind of a set-up a person needs to actually achieve something like this, here’s this picture of his Escher-shooting studio. Smsilton used a 60mm macro lens at f/2.8. He shot the image at ISO 640 and 1/250. But figuring out the right settings for the job wasn’t even the hardest part:

The hardest part was focusing. In the set up picture you can see a piece of string above the eye dropper. I would let that hang down off the eye dropper and focus on that, then move it and squeeze the dropper and the shutter at almost the same time. I have like 30ish more pictures with the drop clearly in the shot but the sketch behind it isn’t in focus, this was the clearest one I got.”

Personally, I’d think the hardest part was being patient enough to shoot water drops for two hours just to get the one magical shot, but that’s why I’ve never had any interest in being a professional photographer.

As for this first top ten list, I thought tattoos would make a great topic -after all, you have to really love an illusion to get one tattooed on you. This first tattoo is my personal favorite because it’s such a classic illusion subject -multiple meaning one. These work really well as arm  tattoos because you never know if someone will view it while your arm is raised or not, making it the ideal location for such a piece. This specific design was done by David Page. On the left, you have a queen, but when you flip her upside down, you have a king.

Next, the skull illusion tattoo involves one of my favorite types of illusions. What’s so great about skull illusions?  Let’s face it, they’re just so cool! It’s also a great idea for a tattoo since skulls are one of the most classic tattoo designs, but this interpretation brings the concept from cliche to chic.

Here’s another excellent skull illusion tattoo, this one involving two clowns holding hands while drinking. The tattoo, by Kate Hoogland, just might contain the most romantic skull illusion I have ever seen.

On the right, we have a brilliant rendition of M.C. Escher’s Drawing Hands illusion. The piece, done by Cheryl Volling, has some absolutely stunning shading, giving it the life-like appearance of the original Escher drawing.

This ambigram tattoo is great in that it incorporates some of the most important aspects of philosophy into an ambigram. It’s also particularly nice in that it is easy to read and doesn’t look strange from either direction, which is one of the hardest aspects in making an ambigram.

This saint/sinner ambigram is also easy to read, but rather than focusing on the arts and sciences, it focuses on religion. I think it really seems to denote the true duality of man.

Here’s another cool religious optical illusion, albeit in a a totally different style. If you don’t see the illusion, just back up a few more inches and then you’ll see that the image comes together to make the face and beard of Jesus.

On the right is another Escher tattoo, this one is on Flickr user’s alan.maia profile and features fish transforming into birds (and vice-versa) artwork. Maybe it’s just me, but I really love how worried that last fish in the tattoo looks.

We’ve featured a few of Del-Prete’s illusions before, but this impossible object tattooed on Flickr user bonstance and seen in the book Masters of Deception is still new.

Here’s a great tattoo with a double meaning. Is it a face or a cartoonish man playing saxophone?

Bonus: While it’s little anamorphic, this one might not technically be an illusion. Even so, the details are amazing enough to make it looks completely realistic.

Now, before I sign off, I thought I’d ask you guys about your own tattoos. After all, if you’re a regular reader of Moillusions.com, you just might be the type of person who’s willing to get an illusion tattoo. So, do any of you have illusion tattoos? And if you do, do you have any links to the pictures online? I know I’m not the only one who’d love to see them.

Also, I’m a big fan of giving credit where it’s due, so if you know who did any of the tattoos that aren’t labeled, please leave their names in the comments. Thanks guys!

Anyway, we’ve seen this same Escher work in LEGO before, but there’s just something about the delicate nature of paper that makes the interpretation of the same original Escher work appear so much more fragile and delicate than the toy brick version. In a way, it’s kind of like hearing a song covered by two different bands who specialize in two different genres. You can recognize that they started out with the same influence, but the end result is drastically different.

Today’s article features one of the animated variations of Escher’s Ascending and Descending. In reality it would be impossible to construct staircase similar to this one, however there have been some semi-successful examples in the past.

Let’s conduct a simple thought experiment: could you isolate the separation point, supposedly this object was actually a real-life construction instead, viewed from carefully selected angle?

So what’s going on here? One thing about Dutch artist M.C. Escher was his ability to twist our brains with his optical illusions. The “Waterfall”, which was created back in 1961 is an impossible drawing showing what appears to be water running uphill before descending back onto a watermill wheel. You can see how the original looks on paper here. But what if we caught a glimpse of it created in real life? Has McWolles really achieved the impossible? Check the video below to see the physical version of Escher’s Waterfall. It is as if McWolles made one that actually works. Being honest, I just can’t understand where is the catch. Does it have something to do with camera’s angle (it never changes during the video), can it be that CGI was used? It almost gives you brain whiplash just thinking about it!

Anyhow, the real solution was kindly provided by Joao Lima: “The trick is very simple. The wall is very thin and on the other side there is the same structure, where the shadow is a projection behind the wall. I mean, the spot light is behind the wall so there is no reason to look for the hand shadow.

This illusory object was created by an artist called Joana Corona, and can be seen at the exposition at Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba – Brazil.” In the mean time, check this animated .gif file showing Escher’s Relativity in action! Whoever incorporated the escalator surely did a great job, and completely understands M.C. Escher and his work!

Never the less, I think the illusion in its essence is perfect. Moreover, it became even more interesting when I noticed the second illusion it hides. It took me few moments before I realized that the central column isn’t the only Escheresque object present. Perhaps it’s central placement and focus distracts people’s attention from noticing the second illusion, which isn’t much different itself.

How long did it take you to realize them both? There were some other posts on this site, that showcased real-life Escher Columns in action as well. Unfortunately, I can’t decide which were the best cases. Help me, and post a link (or attach image to your comment, if you wish) to your favorite ones!

Is this a giant game of Q*Bert? – NMN