Photos and videos that fool the mind!

AdamGT · April 4, 2024, 6:08am

Introduction:
Like most Local Guides, I’m just a hobbyist photographer. I just love, love, love taking snaps of places and things that catch the eyes and sharing these with everyone. I have to be honest and admit that a pet part of this love, is taking optical illusions, shots that I describe as fooling the mind. This brief post is about such photos and videos that fool the mind and is motivated by this comment made by @PrasadVR about my cover photo in my Top Google Maps Local Guides in each Country post.

Sometimes photos and videos are taken that accidentally fool the mind but other times they are deliberately setup and let me mention some examples of this.

Photos:
With his sharp mind Prasad looked closely at the cover photo in my Top Google Maps Local Guides in each Country post and no doubt looking at the position of the golden Buddhist monk statue seen on the Temple Gate, thought that I had moved onto a raised platform to take the shot. However, while very observant of Prasad, this was not the case. Let me explain…

As shown in this streetview shot, it’s pretty much flat around the front of the Temple Gate and once again from the streetview shot you can see that the golden Buddhist monk statue is some distance behind the Temple Gate. So at the time of taking this shot, I deliberately positioned myself so that the head of the Buddhist monk was positioned smack dead center of the gates’ circular opening (see enlarged photo below). This gives the illusion that the head of the Buddhist monk is on the gate itself which of course it is not.

Videos:

Here’s an example of a video I took while visiting Vanuatu back in 2020, just before COVID closed down the world.

As I mentioned in my earlier post about this video, when I first saw this view I thought to myself, “no way José”. Did this massive ship take a wrong turn and end up on the road facing oncoming traffic LOL? But wait, there’s more…

Of course sometimes you can edit photos and possibly videos to create such optical illusions and just for fun I have done this before here on Connect LOL. Here are q couple of examples:

Have you taken photos or videos that either by accident or purposely have been deliberately framed to fool the mind? If so do share these as I’m sure we’d all love to see them.

PrasadVR · April 4, 2024, 8:15am

Hello @AdamGT , Thank you for mentioning me in your post. When I saw the photo for the first time on my imac screen, It impressed so much, I felt there was something special behind the shot. Thanks for sharing the detailed explanation. I appreciate your creativity and skills in capturing the scene.

Annaelisa · April 4, 2024, 8:20am

@AdamGT es sind trickreiche Aufnahmen und gelungen .

AdamGT · April 4, 2024, 8:52am

Thanks @PrasadVR . I agree with you, there is something special in the photo, it’s the way it was framed.

AdamGT · April 4, 2024, 8:55am

I myself think that these shots are much more interesting @Annaelisa and provoke the viewer to look at and think about the shot more closely and deeply.

AZ_2021 · April 7, 2024, 3:16am

Awesome share @AdamGT ! Your article title really caught my eyes! That’s so cool about the ship looking like it took a wrong turn, and that one with the buddha sitting on the gate was a very clever angle you picked. Angle definitely can make a difference, such as a humorous example is when I accidentally have my phone’s front-facing camera on and I’m staring down at a very unflattering reflection. As for an actual example, mine aren’t as creative as yours. In my example below, taken a few years back, I positioned myself to pretend I was feeding an actual horse (while in actuality, it was just a statue of a horse running). Afterward, I zoomed in and cropped the photo to complete the illusion.