RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘Illusion’

Mirage Muralist: Street Artist Bends Surfaces Using Illusion

12 Sep

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

street art subtractive wall

With works often requiring second looks or sanity checks, artist Pejac bends reality in his use of paint and other materials to create sublime art from walls, streets, sidewalks and gutters.

street art splatter paint

street art painting scene

His newest works in Paris, shown above and below, play with our sense of surface and depth, revealing a hidden world beyond the wall in each case. If the close-up scene looks familiar, you may recognize it as The Luncheon on the Grass by Manet.

street door silhouette drawing

street art door illusion

Likewise implying something secret is this silhouette of a door – at a glance, it is hard to tell what part is a real crack in the concrete and which pieces are simply painted on top.

street art world flow

In previous projects, he has also played with the arts of subtraction and illusion in other clever ways – letting the world, for instance, slowly melt, drip and trickle toward the drain.

street art brick removal

street art paint closeup

Some of these works are quite time-intensive and incredibly detail-sensitive, like this final piece in which the artist carefully chipped away at the white paint on a brick wall to selectively reveal the red surface below it.

Share on Facebook





[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Mirage Muralist: Street Artist Bends Surfaces Using Illusion

Posted in Creativity

 

Reflections from Above: Mirrored Skyscraper Illusion Photos

18 Jul

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

Reflections from Above Skyscraper Photos 1

Illuminated cityscapes multiply and divide in unexpected ways when their nighttime reflections hit the mirrored facades of the skyscrapers found within them. Photographer Donna Dotan, known for her vivid and meticulously composed architectural shots, came across her project ‘Reflections from Above’ by accident while shooting an apartment for sale at the Mandarin Oriental in New York City.

Reflections from Above Skyscraper Photography 3

Holding her camera outside the window to snap a photo, Dotan captured not just the city below, but also its reflection against the building itself.

Reflections from Above Skyscraper Photography 2

Reflections from Above Skyscraper Photography 4

The results play into Dotan’s fascination with symmetry and highlight certain aspects of each scene, whether the frenetic energy of the busy streets or the comparative tranquility of the deserted rooftops.

Reflections from Above Skyscraper Photography 5

According to Dotan’s bio, her interest in the built environment began as a child when her family spent summers in Israel, the architecture speaking to her “in an intimate way.” She believes her success as a young photographer comes from “her unique ability to see spaces from the eye of a camera.”

Reflections from Above Skyscraper Photography 6

The ‘Reflections from Above’ series has only just begun – keep an eye on Dotan’s website for more.

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Reflections from Above: Mirrored Skyscraper Illusion Photos

Posted in Creativity

 

Pencil vs. Camera: Illusion Drawings Pop Off the Page

28 Jan

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

Pencil vs Camera Optical Illusion Drawings 1

You might think artist Ben Heine has Photoshopped himself into his own pencil drawings, but he’s actually standing on top of them. Much like the mind-bending optical illusions produced in chalk by sidewalk artists, these are flat drawings that just seem like they’re three-dimensional.

Pencil vs Camera Optical Illusion Drawings 2

Pencil vs Camera Optical Illusion Drawings 3

Pencil vs Camera Optical Illusion Drawings 4

The Belgium-based multidisciplinary artist mixes photography and drawings for the series ‘Pencil vs. Camera,’ one of his best-known projects. The drawings seem to pop out from the page when viewed from a certain perspective, making it look like the artist is interacting with his own creations.

Pencil vs Camera Optical Illusion Drawings 5

Pencil vs Camera Optical Illusion Drawings 6

“I just make art for people,” says Heine. “I want them to dream and forget their daily troubles. I used to write poems many years ago, I want to convey a poetic and philosophical meaning into my pictures, each new creation should tell a story and generate an intense emotion, like a poem, like a melody.”

Ben Heine Scenery Drawings

Another part of the series blends Heine’s drawings with landscape photos so they match up. The artist selects a location, draws a fanciful illustration, and then takes a photo of the combined results.

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Pencil vs. Camera: Illusion Drawings Pop Off the Page

Posted in Creativity

 

2D or Not 2D? Body Paint Illusion Makes Faces Look Flat

29 Nov

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

Body Paint 2D Illusion 1

Three-dimensional human bodies are transformed to look like paintings on a flat surface in this curious collaboration between a makeup artist, a photographer and a retoucher. In his series Art of Face, Alexander Kholkhlov explores the ways in which people can function as canvases, using body paint to obscure their humanity.

Body Paint 2D Illusion 2

For a set entitled ’2D or Not 2D?’ makeup artist Valeriya Kutsan applies body paint in such a way that it’s sometimes near-impossible to tell that what you’re looking at isn’t just a flat painting. Says Kholkhlov, “”Valeriya used different techniques of face painting so you can see a lot of variations – from sketch and graphic arts to water-colour and oil-paintings. ”

Body Paint 2D Illusion 3

Another set, ‘Angry Beards,’ paints imagery from the game Angry Birds onto bearded men.

Body Paint 2D Illusion 4

Body Paint 2D Illusion 5

The power of body paint to completely transform human bodies into everything from exotic animals to crashed cars can be astounding. Some artists use it to make their models virtually disappear. See 31 more works of art on human canvas.

Share on Facebook





[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on 2D or Not 2D? Body Paint Illusion Makes Faces Look Flat

Posted in Creativity

 

4 Scenes in 1 Photo: Illusion You Have to See to Disbelieve

17 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

4 scenes in 1

Without proof, it makes for a tough sell – what looks like four photographs arranged into a square is indeed a single shot, meticulously staged, as only accompanying images and videos will convince.

4 scenes 1 shot revealed

Bela Borsodi created and photographed the scene for use as an album cover. And while it is still hard to trick your mind into seeing the reality of the overlap, there are subtle cues – certain objects that span multiple quadrants and lead the eye between them. The animation below shows the stages of setup and construction in a kind of stop-motion animation format.

4 scenes detailed view

About the artist: “Bela Borsodi was born in Vienna 1966. After studying graphic design and fine art he started to work as a photographer. In 1992 Bela moved to New York and in 1999 he focused on still life photography, which is still the main direction of his work. Bela lives and works in New York.” He has worked for editorial clients including The New York Times and Wired Magazine and advertising clients including Hermes, Puma, Nike and Freitag.

Share on Facebook



[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


    




WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on 4 Scenes in 1 Photo: Illusion You Have to See to Disbelieve

Posted in Creativity

 

Hidden Depths: Architectural Illusion Unfolds Underground

14 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

russian underground

Facade or fantasm, this series of images presents an alluring picture of the layers – perhaps even literal  levels – of  history that lies beneath aged and famous buildings.

russian architecture kremlin photoshop

Blending physical fact and historical fantasy, these advertisements (for titled “Discover the Full Story”) extend three archetypal works of Soviet architecture to new subterranean depths. They seem a fitting set to promote the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture in Moscow, Russia.

russian architecture museum advertisement

russian architecture kremlin ad

The Kremlin, with its recognizably colorful onion towers, reveals even more (and larger) turrets below – what is on the surface turns out to be just the uppermost peaks. Neo-Classical and Gothic Revival play their parts as well, turning what looks like an old Greek tempt into the top of an edifice, and a stately structure into a skyscraper.

russian architecture underground drawings

russian building underground sketch

And for those who enjoy process as much as product, it is interesting to see the stages these illustrations went through to get to their final form – sketched figures and pillars, hand-drafted architectural elements, and then finishing touches.

Share on Facebook



[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Guerilla Ads & Marketing. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

    


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Hidden Depths: Architectural Illusion Unfolds Underground

Posted in Creativity

 

Seeing vs. Photographing the Moon: The Moon Illusion

20 Feb
Perigee Moon & California Oak

Perigee Moon & California Oak near the Monterey coast, California

One of the more intriguing visual phenomenon is seeing a giant moon on the horizon. One might think that there is some physical explanation as to why the moon is larger when low on the horizon, but its actually a visual illusion where your brain is playing a trick on you. This illusion is aptly called the “Moon Illusion“. This illusion is incredibly well explained in the following video:

So how do people capture a super large moon in their photographs?
There are a few ways:
1) Use a large telephoto lens to photograph the moon so that it fills a larger portion of the frame
2) Add the moon to a scene using the in-camera technique of double-exposures
3) Use a Photoshop or other image editing software to composite two images together.

No one way is right or wrong as the end result pursued is at the creative discretion of the photographer. Still some people can get confused between real and altered photos to display large moonscapes. The photo at the top of this post was taken with  a 600mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter for a net focal length of 840mm. The photo below was taken with a 70-300mm lens employing my film cameras double-exposure functionality.

San Francisco Moonrise

Photoshop clearly can provide the fastest path to high impact photos, but not always the most natural rendition. A perfect example of this is comparing the two images of a moon above a Los Angeles skyscraper taken at 105mm. Moon photo composite made with Photoshop versus a straight 105mm photo of the moon. Clearly the first image has had some artistic license applied while the second is a straight representation of what a 105mm lens can capture.

All in all photographing the moon can be incredibly challenging and fun. How you represent the scene you see with your naked eye is up to you, but take into account the “Moon Illusion” when creating your final photo. It might just explain why what you see in your photo doesn’t match up to your memory of the scene.

Copyright Jim M. Goldstein, All Rights Reserved

Seeing vs. Photographing the Moon: The Moon Illusion

The post Seeing vs. Photographing the Moon: The Moon Illusion appeared first on JMG-Galleries – Landscape, Nature & Travel Photography.


JMG-Galleries – Landscape, Nature & Travel Photography

 
Comments Off on Seeing vs. Photographing the Moon: The Moon Illusion

Posted in Equipment

 

Brick Farmhouse Facade Illusion via Photo-Printed Glass

24 Jan

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

glass facade

For decades, no one could quite agree on what should go in this critical location between the town hall and central church in war-damaged Schijndel, Holland … until MVDRV showed up with a radical proposal remixing old and new. Their solution: printing local historical-building photographs right onto glass.

glass brick farmhouse illusion

It was agreed that the new structure should respect the original building envelope and regional vernacular without a kitschy attempt at reproducing a false past. Hence, this glazed facade made to look like a traditional thatch-roof brick farmhouse via images provided by photographer Frank van der Salm.

glass town square secret

Window and door openings are given curious treatment, shown as semi-erased visual voids that do not conform to the structure depicted on the printed-glass surfaces. Close up, they provide useful cues to pedestrians – at a distance, they simply blend into the building or hide among reflected architecture.

glass mvrdv architecture project

Inside this so-called Glass Farm envelope, shops, restaurants and offices look back out on the mirror-image translucent farmhouse, providing fascinating interactions both within and without.  Whether or not you love this solution, it raises compelling questions – instead of masquerading as a faux-historical structure, MRVDV’s smoke-and-mirrors approach invites interactions with history via an overlapping combination of illusion, photography, reflection and reality.

Share on Facebook





[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]


WebUrbanist

 
Comments Off on Brick Farmhouse Facade Illusion via Photo-Printed Glass

Posted in Creativity

 

The Illusion of Modern Beauty: Makeup, Lighting, Photography, Photoshop Retouching, Extreme Makeover

20 Mar

www.supermongrel.net The fashion industry can divide people. On the one hand, it’s fun, glamourous and exciting, a showcase of new and innovative design, a brilliant outlet for artistic minds and creative souls. On the other hand, there’s the glorification of thinness, the focus on youth, the illusion of imagery in which photos are manipulated so much that the original model may not even be recognizable. People want to look good. Looking good helps us feel good. Unfortunately, too many people compare themselves to the models in magazines and on television, and feel they can never live up to the glamour projected by these images. When we compare ourselves to images in magazines, we forget how many people are involved with making someone “look good.” It’s a big team with a big budget. In our video we applied a two person team and a tiny budget to illustrate how easy it is to transform the “average” person into a cover model in the space of a few hours. What you see here illustrates how it’s done. If you were to have this done, you’d look pretty darn good too. Anyone would. This isn’t a statement on what looks good, it’s a reminder that what you see in the bathroom mirror can’t possibly measure up to what you see in the magazines and here’s why. Models, stars, and celebrities have bags, blotches, and even cellulite like the rest of us, but they’re hidden through good lighting, makeup, stylists, great photography and retouching. Looking good is subjective. The key element to
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Here is a brief discussion on the Clone Stamp, Healing Brush, and Patch tools.
Video Rating: 3 / 5