Josh Sommers’ “Escheresques” – Part II

Remember Josh Sommers? He was the artist that created all the impossible CG object (Part I and Part II), and those marvelous Escheresques (Part I). The name for this article is Escheresques as well (Part II). The name stands as a tribute to optical illusion master M.C. Escher. These images were all done with help of some 3D photo editing program, which is irrelevant, since the outcome is to be observed as a computer art. Which of these images you like the most? Have you connected each one with its original Escher pair? If you don’t recognize all of them, I suggest visiting “Inspired by Escher” optical illusion category, where you have a good chance of learning which images were inspirational for Josh.







84 Replies to “Josh Sommers’ “Escheresques” – Part II”

  1. Hmm I don’t get the third one, and the fourth one is out of proportion. Grass isn’t that big!

    The one after that looks a bit naff…

    Basically it goes down in quality as you go down the images =[

  2. okay. I didn’t get the sidewalk one at first either. But it’s one of those impossible illusions. Look closely. The top of the closer rail seems to go behind the farther rail. (=

  3. In the fourth one, the poles holding up the rail farthest from us cross in front of the other rail. You don’t really see it at first.
    But I don’t see anything unusual in the one with the ornaments.

  4. the ornament one.. he is holding it with his left hand seeing the thumb… but in the ornament, it appears he’s holding it with his right hand

  5. You have to look further in the 3rd & 4th picture. Where is the camera in the ornament and notice the railing in the 4th, not possible. Awesome illusions!

  6. the third one is clever as it is a reflection of a man, yet there is no camera, its like taking a straight on picture of yourself in a mirror without the camera being shown.

    hope that helps!

  7. I believe the illusion in the 4th one is in the railings… It takes a while to see…
    But I still don’t get the 3rd pic =/

  8. for the 4th pic Look closely at the rail that’s behind. The support posts are in front of the first rail

  9. THE FOURTH IS AN ILLUSION BECAUSE IT LOOKS LIKE THE RAILING IS WEAVING IN AND OUT OF THE OTHER RAILING!!!!!! I JUST NOTICED THAT!!

  10. the guy holding the ornament shows ” how its a picture when no-one is in the reflection to take a picture” i think

  11. Fourth one the railing on the closer rail goes behind the back railing.

    Third I’m guessing is just the view from the orb.

  12. These are awesome!
    The third one is just mimicing a picture Escher did, I don’t think there’s anything more to it than that…
    In the fourth one the railing in the foreground goes behind the uprights in the background.

  13. the staircase with the grass is simply that the railings cross over the staircase and back. Wierd when you notice it. The ornament one is very simple. No camera taking the photo in the reflection. Same as Morpheus’ glasses in the matrix movies. close up of reflective glasses showed camera so they painted them matte black.

  14. i dono about the 3rd one, but the 4th with the grass and stairs, look closley at the hand rail, you’ll see what’s up
    great illusions i love this site

  15. For the Fourth one look at the legs of the railing in the back they are in front of the closer railing. As for the third one… i have no idea.

  16. Wow! Don’t understand the third one but I got the fourth one right off the bat…(the railings are intertwined)

  17. The one with the ball is an illusion because, if you consider the angle and perspective of the image, there’s no reason why you cant see the reflection of the camera.

  18. OMG, you people are so stupid.
    – The grass one is supposed to be like that, he’s used full size staircasing with only a few cm of grass, that’s the illusion.
    – The ornamaent is incredible because there is no sign of a camera! How is it done?
    – The first two are the least impressive, thats a typical illusion anyone in first year graphic design learns to do, it’s very quick and simple to replicate.

  19. the third one is an illusion because you cant see the camera D: very weirrdd… and the fourth is an illusion because the poles on the left hand side of the stairs are “overlapping” the bar on the right hand side D:

  20. I don’t understand the third either, but the fourth IS an illusion, just look at the right fence-thing (i don’t know the word for it ;) ).

  21. I asume the thing with the third one is that you can’t see the camera he took the picture with.

  22. Peoples who dont understand the third one… I just ask you one question, Who took the picture????
    Cool that no one understands that….

  23. The one with the stairs and grassy aréa are just fantastic.
    The three first stairs are
    only one step .

  24. On the fourth one, the rails on the far side of the stairs are showing in front of the near side rails

  25. The rest are good, but third one I dont get, and 4th one is just an Escher style impossible handrail, with one handrail running INSIDE the other.

  26. On the fourth picture(the one with the grass) look at the supports for the railing on the other side of stairs.

  27. this isn’t art, it’s a rippoff. Ecsher is cool because he drew them by hand with any computer aid.

  28. Okay, the picture with the ornament is a reflection but there’s no camera in the reflection. The one with the stairs and the grassy area has a magic railing. Look closely at the 2 railings and where they are in relation to each other. Well done!

  29. In the 4th one the front rail goes behind the railing in the back. Although, which one the front one is is kinda the illusion itself…

    The one with the ornaments I think is a parody of that Escher drawing of himself looking into that reflective ball. I know it’s on the site somewhere but I cant find it.

  30. i dont get the 3rd one

    on the fourth
    look at the bars on the side

    they’re good at first
    but then lose quality

  31. I don’t understand how the one with the ornament is an illusion…

    If you look carefully at the one with the stairs you notice that the railing in the foreground goes behind the bars holding up the opposite railing. It took me a while to notice that.

    The last one just makes me dizzy, lol

  32. In the fourth one, the rail that should be closer to the observer is behind the other rail. I really don’t understand what was so hard about that.

  33. the third 1 has an illusion in it…

    Spoiler:how can the man take a picture without a camera?

  34. I like 5, 6, and 7. The others I think aren’t really optical illusions, if so, not very good ones. 5, 6, and 7 are amazing though.

  35. the third picture confuzzles me
    because where is the camera surely that would be reflected XD
    but i dont get how the 4th one is an illusion anybody know?

  36. i don’t get the third one but the forth one, if you look close, you can see that the left bars are behind the ones on th right side.

  37. Too obvious that he just cut up the pictures and pasted them in weird places to make them look cool.

    Bo-ring.

  38. OK, I think that the third one is an illusion because you should be able to see the camera in the reflection, but you can’t.

  39. How is the third one possible? How can the picture be taken, but the camera not appear in the reflection? Amazing!

  40. ok the third one is the fact you cant see the camera and the fact that in the reflection hes holding the ornament with his right hand, but his thumb is showing that hes actually holding it with his left.

  41. 3rd one: either he can’t take the picture without a camera, or he is holding the ornament with his left hand in reality, but in the reflection, he is holding it in his right hand.

    4th one: the railing goes behind the other legs of the railing in the background. Also, the foreground and background of the picture is blurry, while the middle ground is in focus

    5th one: Personally i thought this was obvious… the columns on the right, if you follow them, appear to go into the ceiling of the columns on the left.

  42. 4th one: The fact that the middle is clear while the rest are blurry is a type of photography called tilt-shift miniature faking. Creates really gorgeous pictures sometimes. (:

  43. The third one looks like it is a Sculpture.
    The hand looks fake, and maybe the ‘reflection’ is, in fact, just a painting.
    If this theory is correct- the painter is very talented!

  44. Also the black background would not be pitch black- it would be at least a bit brighter. And if the artist has used some type of Photoshop technique (which I highly doubt- it ruins the art of the picture)- then whos saying he didn’t Photoshop the rest of it.
    No I still believe that is a picture of a sculpture, and his ‘reflection’ is painted on.

  45. Another thing to take into consideration is that the hand and arm is on an angle in the photo. So the photo could possibly have been taken by a camera in the room.

    Actually, by looking at the other baubles- like the red one, the man is certainly standing there- though it looks slightly like he is holding a black camera.

    I’m very confused.

  46. I love to come across these reposts of my work and read the comments.

    Out of all of these, I would only really consider one of them to be an illusion, but they are all inspired by Escher, which I believe is why they are posted here.

    Let me start by saying, I personally think the railing and column images are rather sub-par illusions, and not great Escher homages either. I consider those images to be simple experiments, not really final “masterpieces”.

    For those who are wondering, the third one, the one with the ornament, is not a painting and there is no trickery regarding which hand is holding the ornament. The reason you can’t see the camera in the reflection is that it is obscured by the darkness of the fireplace.

  47. I get the 3rd one! hes holding it with his left hand but in the reflection its his right (looks like left from our pov but it is HIS right hand)

  48. Chirality is reversed by mirror reflection, it happens even when you look at yourself in the morning while shaving. So, no wonder that the left hand looks as a right hand in the mirror.

    And… if you carefully connect a central point with its reflection, then the resulting line aims at a dark place across the room where a black camera could be easily camouflaged.

    In the end I see nothing strange in that image.

  49. the third 1 has an illusion in it…

    Spoiler:how can the man take a picture without a camera? it may be magic / software effect

  50. In the third image, he’s holding the mirror ball with his left hand, and the reflection is of his left hand. People who think he’s holding it with his right hand are either not accounting for the distorting affect of the ball, or can’t tell the difference between left and right in a mirror.

    Cameras are so small these days, it could easily be hidden, obscured by other objects, or just so small the picture doesn’t show it. For example, a laptop’s web cam is smaller than your eye, and you can’t really see the guy’s eye well, so why do you expect to be able to even see the camera?

    It’s not an illusion. It’s an artistic photograph.

  51. If you read the paragraph before all of the images, it says that these were/are to be intended as computer art, and as such, the artist used a 3D editing program. In regards to the debate of “where’s the camera in the 3rd image”, there most likely is no hidden camera as it was edited/manipulated.

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