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.

I’ve never been very good at wooden block architecture, so I never really made anything all that impressive with the toys when I was younger. They do seem like a good, albeit underutilized, medium for art projects. Have any of you ever made cool stuff with wooden blocks?

It’s a little like this striped Garfield picture Vurdlak posted back in April. A good knitter could even make a scarf from that, although Garfield would undoubtedly appeal to an entirely different crowd than the alien from this scarf.

Personally, I’d love to wear a something like this, knowing I was the only one who would know about the illusion for the most part. Would you guys wear this or at least one with a similar illusion knitted in?

P.S. Here’s another example that found it’s way through. Thank youTrevor for sending this in!

Update 07/06/2011 – Thanks to our dedicated fans we’ve managed to identify the author behind this monumental achievement. His name is François Abelanet and may find more photos here.

The lead artist behind this work is Tracy Lee Stum, who happens to hold a Guinness World Record for the largest chalk painting by a single individual (as opposed to the largest chalk drawing by a group, which is featured on Moillusions here). Yeah, she’s pretty impressively talented whether working with a group, like she did on this Mouse Trap project, or working alone, like she did on the record-winning Last Supper piece below.

Anamorphic art requires the viewer look at the piece from a specific viewpoint or using a special tool in order to actually see the artwork in its proper display form. By the end of his career, Dali was a master of this skill, creating paintings like the one above that required cylindrical mirrors to see the work in its true form, and by painting spectroscopic images that required 3D glasses to take in the full effect.

His most famous work of this type is the Mae West Room in his Theater Museum that was based on his famous painting, The Face Of Mae West. As you can see in the pictures below, the stage appears to be nothing more special than a lip-shaped sofa with a strange fire place and two paintings. When you step up to the viewing platform and look through the lens though, everything comes together into a bizarre portrait of the legendary actress.

The first two photos are my own, but the final image is courtesy of Flickr user asirap.

One of the most popular artists (building his career around this effect) is Istvan Orovitz. Check the #Orovitz tag, and you can see some of the works Istvan did in the past. Many of them we already showcased. I’m not particularly sure whether all of the examples in this video belong to Istvan, but the ones exhibited are worthy to see…

BTW, as Brieuc properly pointed, this is kinda similar to chalk drawing illusions, except made with candles. For more anamorphic stuff, be sure to check the corresponding tags and categories – #Anamorphic and Anamorphosis category!

Where is the ball?

Got another great vid from a friend of mine yesterday. Even though you may think: “What is a magic trick doing on an optical illusions dedicated website”, you’ll quickly change your mind after the clip has ended.

But wait! There is more to it then you probably noticed at first. Be sure to replay the video couple of times, and each time concentrate on another background figure. Are the wooden mannequin, Rubik’s Cube, radio and whole bunch of other items lined as you originally presumed?

Even though magic tricks and optical illusions have whole lot in common, you’ll certainly agree that Chop Cups video has much more to do with illusions, than magicians and tricks. This has to be one of my favorite clips of all times. Btw, it gives me a great pleasure observing the “Top 10 Optical Illusions” chart in our sidebar. It’s like watching a live-growing organism, providing me with real-time feedback of what kind of material my audience really appreciates. Apart from ratings, comments and “top 10 illusions”, I’m thinking of engaging you guys even further. More stuff coming soon!

Apparently this Spalding basketball ball is just painted on the street, though...

To see how the painting came to be, see the gallery:

Today’s gallery is called “Anamorphosis“, and was created by Luc d’Hanis & Sofie Lachaert. This technique is very well understood by our old visitors, but if you’re a newbie you may want to check the Anamorposis category first. In today’s example when porcelain platters meet reflective object, the distorted drawings of precious birds on the platter become perfectly reflected on the bottles or cups. The awareness of the birds’ potential extinction emerges only when objects are carefully aligned as a pair. The distorted drawings on the platters only reveal themselves when you place a reflective object in the middle of the platter. Hope you’ll enjoy these “minimalistic” optical illusion photos. Oh, by the way – don’t forget to vote after you check our archived illusions. We need as many votes possible, to bring some credibility to out “top illusions” leaderboard.

The secret is revealed when you place a reflective object in the middle of the platter.

Here you may check some more Anamorphic examples: