Visitor called Jonas shared his recent photo with us. He described the background of how this picture took place, but wants you to solve how the effect happens. He will probably explain it inside the comments after some time. This is the email I received from him: “In September of this year a friend and I visited Scotland where I took some nice pictures with my brand new Sony A100 camera. One of the pictures I made includes a view on my own shadow, in a very odd way. Check it out for yourself! I called it the ‘Split Hill Illusion’ since the hill I’m standing on appears to be split into two horizontal halves. I’m e-mailing you the full resolution jpeg with meta data included. That way you can verify the originality, ’cause there was no Photoshop involved ;) I suggest you let people discuss it before I post an explanation…” For similar illusions check: living shadows, palm tree shadow, flying car, nation geographic camels, basketball player illusion…
The top half is on top of the hill, before it drops down, while the bottom hill is truly at the bottom of the hill. Still an awesome effect, though. :D
The land in the shadows is also hilly. The sun is in an ideal position to shadow the low points, while illuminating the high points.
Hi – I think you are stood on an earth bank or low wall which is higher than the surface of the hill you are looking at, hence the forground shadow of the wall/bank and your legs. The other shadow is cast by the edge of the hill you are looking down at.
Took a bit of thought to explain it, great picture!
The person who took the picture is standing on a rounded hill with a sharp drop off, that has grass growing up to the very edge of it. That creates the upper shadow.
There is something else behind the person, maybe a terrace, that creates the lower shadow.
the hill it’s like a “vulcan” and the man is inside the centre.
The sun at 5 o’clock make the effect…
i think that the pic is taken from the near side of a bridge…
I’m starting to think that too… Either that or a car with a canoe rack on it.
there are two hills. The person is standing on a small hill which casts a shadow on the rise in front of them. This hill in turn cast a shadow on the ground below.
I fyou look closly,you can see a small drop just wheree the top shadow starts. Does this have anything 2 do with…
I’M SCARED
LMAO!! Why are you scared? It is an illusion.
I think it is a split hill though, with a slight chance that it was a bridge.
photoshop
I’m a leprachaun!! I’m standing on a rainbow that is behind two trees. The sun is behind me : ) I’ll find that pot o’gold yet, I will!!
its right
there is a timber fence behind or in front of him
he is standing at the top of the hill. the sun is behind him. part way down the hill there is a flat area, that’s where the first shadow is. where the flat area cuts off and starts the incline again is where the other shadow starts.
they probably stood om a hill and had a light on the ground to make a strait line of light.
There is another hill in front of him. If we had a wall we could see all his shadow but without the wall we only see his legs that joins the lower shadow with him on the ground.
He is standing on a bridge, looking down. The horizontal shadows are cast by the bridge and bridge rail.
I’m thinking that the hill has a really dramatic drop, and the upper “hill” is really a guard rail or something like that. Because of the big drop, it makes the guard rail’s shadow look a lot taller.
you should be scared. be very scared.
Finally NOT a Photoshop job! This was done with the aide of a large spotlight to the right and maybe even one to the left. You can see a small portion of the cord.
The photographer is obviously on a planet with two suns. There can’t be any other explanation.
I like it, it’s clever.
but im just trying to figure out what HooPoo is on …
large spotlight?! /me slaps self in the head. ahh now i realise! HooPoo is an idiot.
No it’s very obvious the picture-taker collected all energy in the universe and bent the light into this..
Take a look at the direction the trees are pointing in… weird. But I don’t know what it is.
First thing I thought of is that he’s standing on a bridge or something…
Is this a daytime photo ? It looks like there are 2 light sources. Look at the shadow direction. In a night time (light assisted) photo, this can happen. If it is a day time photo, then it is already explained by couple of viewers in the beginning.
The photographer is standing about 10ft from the edge of a sharp drop with something behind him that is causing a shadow that finishes about 2ft from edge of drop.The shadow he appears to be standing on is of the drop in front of him.
Phew! that hurt my brain.
Here’s an easy way to see what’s going on…look at the graphic below…the part where there’s a slope is where we see a shadow on the hill. The flat part in the middle is where we see the shadow of the man’s legs and sunlight strip. Finally, the angle of the sun casts the rest of the shadow of the man (who is also taking the picture) on the bottom of the hill.
sun
…man
———
………\
……….—-
…………..\
……………————-
If you had more slopes and flat parts, you could have the hill ‘split’ into many more pieces :)
I agree that the hill was like that, and it all makes sense!!! Can’t explain it, but I know exactly how it works. Soz!
are you the one who did it
why is it that the shadow of the tree is pointing left but the shadow of the man is pointing straight?
Hello everybody, my name Jonas and I am the photographer of this strange picture.
Many of you didn’t understand how it was possible to take the picture, others didn’t believe it wasn’t tricked.
HooPoo (who changes his name every day, but always has poo in it because (s)he’s always full of crap) even had a theory in which I would have used large spotlights to create the play of light. (S)he managed to hallucinated a powercord on the photograph.
But some of you actually used their brain and solved the mystery (partially). Actually the first five reations got close to the truth, but the 27th (anonymous) was the closest and best explained. He or she even used the old graphic technique called ascii-art to visualize.
You can find a drawing I made to explain the illusion on http://users.telenet.be/jonas.sphere/bits/hill.jpg
I think the mystery should be solved by this …
Looks like a bridge to me.
MY HILL!!!
What have you done to my precious hill?
looks like a hill with a fence at the top then he is standing in front of the fence which casts a shadow almost a metre from the dark side of the hill so there is a halo of bright hill
as shown in this ascii art D being dark and L being light and P being the photographer
..DDDDLDDDD
_|_P_
/…..\
/…….\
………\
haha i do this all the time. the bottom half is the actual hill, causing somewhat of a shadow. the second half is the shadow of the hill on the grassy field below him.
wow!! cool this is cool!!
i think some of the grass was sprade
the upper half of the “split hill” is the shadow the lower half of the “split hill” is the real hill where he is standing, where he took the picture
Jonas (The photographer):
Clever!
That didn’t even come to my mind :o)
Actually, I agreed on the bridge theory….
its 100% bridge and two part of that
It was quite clearly a split hill I thought. Had to laugh at some of the other suggestions! Suddenly it’s clear how ufo conspiracy theories are perpetuated ;)
The solution was fairly simple however, if the photographer was to jump at the point the photo was taken his legs would be eliminated from the bottom hill and therefor the gap. this would have made it much more difficult and would have suggested a second light source was used to add the seperation. other then that great timing with natural lighting and photography :)
i think a mirror was used…
You obviously divided by zero
Maybe he is standing on a flat roof of a house on the hill top …