Mighty Optical Illusions » Transparent

Liu Bolin Has Disappeared!

Jill Harness — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:09:30 +0000

We’ve featured lots of Liu Bolin’s camouflage paintings before, but that’s just because his talent is so incredibly impressive! I believe there is no reason to ever stop posting such amazing illusory installments when they come out. In my own opinion, some of Liu’s best works include tractor image, dragon series and the camouflage cans illusion because in all of these pictures, Liu appears practically invisible to untrained eye. No matter which of his works are your favorite though, it’s hard to deny the skill necessary to produce these. Specially once you get the chance to glaze through his newest series:

Which one’s your favorite? Do you ever have a hard time finding the person in the pictures?

Water In Front of M.C. Escher

Jill Harness — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:52:54 +0000

As a regular Mighty Optical Illusions reader, you’re all certainly familiar with what is undoubtedly one of M.C. Escher’s most famous works – Relativity. We’ve featured the piece recreated in LEGO, papercrafts, animated gifs, even in billboards, but this is undoubtedly the first time someone has been able to show us what the image looks like when shot through a drop of water!

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.

Camouflage Cans by Liu Bolin

Vurdlak — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:17:36 +0000

If I was asked to think of a single artist who has truly mastered his profession, I surely would’ve think of Liu Bolin. There’s no need to repeat everything that has already been said about this true genius, rather be sure to check #Liu Bolin tag for little bit of history in the making. This time Joey Tillman discovered a new piece by Liu, featured by The Telegraph. It seems Liu even beat himself this time. I can’t seem to realize how you do this kind of camouflage solely using your bare hands and bucket full of paint!? See for yourself!

Why The Invisible Boxes?

Vurdlak — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:20:19 +0000

While Liu Bolin uses his body as a canvas (to perfectly blend in with the surroundings), Cayeteno Ferrer paints delivery boxes to make them disappear in front of our very own eyes! I’m pretty sure it must have taken ages for Ferrer to finish these boxes, yet I’m puzzled what is the meaning behind his work? Ok, I realize some installments are very hard to understand, yet I don’t see any purpose nor story in these…

Still No Luck Finding Jobs

Vurdlak — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:26:20 +0000

You may recall how few months ago we posted some pretty cool posters from JobsInTown, a company that helps people in selling their work. These billboards weren’t much of an illusion, but still they provided one hell of a laugh. I had 3 or 4 of this ads scattered among few of the archived posts, but today (while browsing the net) I found the full collection . I’ve included 5 of these you probably never saw before, but just in case I added previous ones in high res, and included them inside our new galleries. I had a though time picking the coolest one for our main image, but guess you will tell me which one stands out of the crowd. If someone missed what these are all about, well the idea was to give people a clue they sometimes deserve more in their life. Just hope that in reality JobsInTown lacks a history of connecting people with similar exploiting jobs.

Few months later, life's STILL too short for the wrong job...

Check out more posters from this hilarious campaign:

Audi R8 Optical Illusion

Vurdlak — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 21:25:46 +0000

When I announced that you can expect more classy optical illusions in the future, this is just what I had in mind. Before we start, I’d like to thank Xaver Nitsch for creating this original optical illusion just for us! Now, I’m perfectly aware we already had dozen of relative sizes illusions. We even had a very similar one including Range Rovers. BTW, this is where Xaver probably got his inspiration in the first place… But wait! This one is different. I won’t explain it though, I’m just gonna ask you a simple question – Which one of these three Audi’s (R8) do you think is the largest? Don’t rush, take your time. I have included an expandable solution just below the original image. When you think you know what is going on here, you may expand the box containing the answer. Be aware that the answer image is actually an animation. Wait for a few seconds before it starts. What do you think of this illusion now? Was this what you expected?

Which one is largest? - Illusion of 3 Audi's

Click To View the Solution Animation

X-Ray Vision Table Design

Vurdlak — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:14:00 +0000

Jesse Hernick thought we might enjoy this one. The creator of this solid walnut table decided to paint a wire-frame of its constructional elements right on it, which results in you asking yourself if you got some special X-Ray powers. Unfortunately, the see-through works only from certain angles. If you move 10 degrees, it will just look weird. The artist who created this, James Tooze from BatchDesign, said he developed this table (titled “A New Perspective”) to encourage people in being more curious and question themselves how things are actually made.

Concerning the spelling and grammar, I appreciate all the encouraging emails and comments you posted yesterday. There are just too many to answer them one by one, but be sure I appreciate them highly and they make me all fuzzy, and stuff.. Thanks!

Not Transparent, MAGNIFYING!

Vurdlak — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 18:39:00 +0000

I had hard time deciding which one of these interesting billboards by Leica should I put first. To explain further – if an article consists of more than one photo, ie. a photo-set or image collection, only the first one appears in your widgets and gadgets. Still am not sure which one is the best, and would bring most attention. Can you help? Leica is a company that deals with photo-equipment (if my logic is good), and these should be the billboards they used for their V-Lux photo cameras (or lenses?). Don’t ask me in detail, since I found this info only by zooming the pic. If you have further knowledge, or have encountered these billboards across the country, be sure to comment. They remind me greatly of our recent PSP ads, but the small difference is that they’re not only transparent, but have ability to “magnify” the background as well. I’m sure you understand they aren’t really magnifying, but just a clever optical illusion advertising trick.

Transparent PSP Billboards Spotted in The Wild

Vurdlak — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:32:00 +0000

Friends of mine have sent me these transparent billboards for Sony PSP they spotted online. Have you had the chance to see them live anywhere in your neighborhood? Even though they work only from certain point of view, I think they are marvelous, and catch consumers attention. We really didn’t have much transparent illusions lately, so this comes refreshing. What kind of illusions you like the most? Which type should I post next? You tell me, and I’ll deliver. It really took me by surprise to see over 150 comments for yesterday’s post. You are doing great job, please keep it so!

Transparent X-Ray Devices… Illusion?

Vurdlak — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:35:00 +0000

Another post full of photos! Transparent desktops were quite popular year ago. They were followed by all kind of “Transparent Devices” all the way to transparent billboards. Many of them are still laying on my disk, so I made a comprehensive collection, and posted it to this article. You probably won’t see these any time soon, so enjoy it for now, and try to decode how each of them were created. Some were quite easy to make, some not. I’d like you to tell me which ones you liked the most, and why?

Hole in The Grill Illusion

Vurdlak — Sun, 06 May 2007 08:19:00 +0000

Hole in the grill

One day Georgia looked out of her window and thought her grill had a hole in it, it didn’t took much effort and time for her to find out what she is seeing is yet another outdoor optical illusion, so thankfully she remembered our little community, and decided to share her photos with us. This is what she wrote in her email:

“Dear Mr. Illusion Man, I am in middle school and I love illusions and cool math things. I think your site is awesome and I have the widget. One day I looked out my window onto the porch and I thought there was a hole in the grill, but it was actually just really clear water reflecting the wooden pole thing. I put two different pictures on the email because I wasn’t sure which one was better. I hope you post it. Invisible illusions are one of my faves ;)”.

I am glad that you shared this with us Georgia, since it looks great (specially when you enlarge the photos). This is the first illusion after the widget update, and it should appear on your desktop in few minutes. Great opportunity to test the widget and comment it. The widget isn’t meant to replace the website, but to show you “illusion of the day” on your desktop. If you notice, by clicking on the image in your desktop widget, it will bring you directly to that particular illusion’s explanation and community comments. Also, this way you won’t miss all the related stuff I link through in my articles. Enjoy!

News Flash – If you are a long time visitor and interested to participate in our new beta project, as being a future guest blogger, and co-editor of this website, send me a brief email including reasons why you believe you would be suitable for this fun co-operation ;) You can find my email in the sidebar, under “contact”.

Hole in the Grill Optical Illusion

New Transparent Desktop Illusions

Vurdlak — Thu, 03 May 2007 02:37:00 +0000

Looks like transparent stuff never gets old! From transparent desktops, see-through billboards, newspapers, mugs, invisible cloaks… all the way to transparent Palms, PSPs, magazines, clothes and “invisible bodies” – we had them all. Probably under influence of all these various illusions Pachanka TheGreat and Richard Howard decided to share two of their creations. I really like both of them, except the first one has little better effect (due to perfect contrast), the second one is also awesome but too dark in the background to work properly. I used this post more as a reminder for all of you about our first illusion articles. Check the blue links in this text and they will bring you to few of the most successful transparent illusion posts from recent months. Dozen more can be found in our transparent category. Enjoy!

Camo in Couch Illusion

Vurdlak — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 18:26:00 +0000

Alex Mora found this body camouflage and mailed it to me. Maybe that is him hiding in the photo. I thought what can be so interesting about a couch, until I noticed camouflaged person. Do you see him? You should enlarge the photo if you have trouble spotting the illusion. I always liked those camouflage illusions. I believe it all started with one of our first posts (invisible cloak). Then people started submitting many similar stuff, one of the most successful was “Camouflaged Uniforms“, the article that hugely resembles this post. If you are more into flora and fauna camouflage, you will probably like that hard to find fish and camouflaged tree more. Enjoy, and don’t jump to other illusion links, before you spot the man hiding on the couch ;) What do you think – does this illusion belong into transparent category, or spot the object one?

Night Vision Transparent Laptop

Vurdlak — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 14:57:00 +0000

PC Squirrel hopes I will post his illusion of a transparent desktop, so I did. It’s interesting submission because he posted two photos, one of shows the final effect, and the other is plane background of his computer. I specially liked the way that the screen of his computer seems like it has night vision built in, so you can clearly see how the background looks, even in dark. More complicated illusion of this sort can be seen in a video I posted earlier. This was quite popular few months ago, when there was even a flickr group where people would share their transparent screen DIY’s (DIY stands for “do it yourself“). I have many of them inside our Mighty Transparent Screens category. I’ll take an hour or so to post many new illusions today, so expect them coming in following hours.

They Might Be Giants Transparent Phone

Vurdlak — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 21:50:00 +0000

This one is pretty simple. Reder who goes by the name NYIslanders2121 sent me this optical illusion with following explanation: “Hi! I have been a HUGE fan of your site for a long time. I was browsing iTunes recently and I discovered that the image they give for the band, “They Might Be Giants” is in fact, an optical illusion.” I have received many more optical illusion submissions, but I just get them at the rate where I can’t follow posting them anymore, for example, I post one and get 3 new… don’t worry, they are still in queue and waiting to be posted next ;) What you see below is simple transparent screen optical illusion. Many more similar can be found inside “Transparent Illusions” category.