Weekly Competition #151 - Optical Illusion Competition

So here my vote and comments. As I am from German, I am not perfect in writing English but I hope you still understand what I meant to say .

Although there haven't been too many pictures, same samples were really stunning and showed, that amazing illusions are possible with and without digital rework. It would be great if those (who have not done it right now, and where it is not possible to see, how they "created" their pictures) would share a bit the secret behind - but I can also understand when you want to keep this secret .

As always - it is not easy to find THE winner, as there was more than one great picture - however, I made up my mind and here is the result (only the top three listed in order - the rest in the order as they appeared in the gallery).

The Winner and congratulation from my side is the amazing Water-Glass photo from Anvh. No idea how you made it - I see only two options - either you have a perfect Water-Glass-Plug-In for Photoshop or you invest a lot of work after the shooting (or you have a simple but therefore even more genius trick). The illusion is perfect, I looked at it several times and still see no evidence of a glass but just water (well - perhaps except the stand of the glass). The colors are also perfectly supporting the fresh water effect as well as the blade-like sharpness. Only tiny negative thing that came to my mind is the missing upper rim of the glass - would be interesting to see, how the water effect would appear in this region of the glass. But nevertheless - this is an amazing photo.

Second: The mysterious marbles from RR. Major reason while I put them on 2 is the missing crystal-clear sharpness - they appear a bit blur. However - I like the photo as I can't find out what it really is (obviously something resting on your desk as it seems that we can see the reflection of a lamp in the marbles - but stil no idea what it really is). I like the color setting a lot - this focus on three different colors that perfectly harmonize and turning the whole image in a SciFi-like atmosphere (which is also a bit supported by the shape itself, which appears a bit like a porthole of a spaceship as well as the 0-gravity like floating of the objects). So also a very interesting picture but unfortunately a bit out-of-focus.

Third: The darker side of JudithAnn. This effect is really good that floating pollen create this butterfly-effect. Using a real reflection to "fake" a frog perspective is also an interesting way to shoot a virtual reality. However - I would have reworked the picture a bit - I would have darkened the silhouette as I think, it would be an even more mystique effect, when the shape does not provide too many details (as this tells a bit the story, how this picture was made - but this is my personal preference) and when darkening the silhouette it would have lost also some of its noise

And now the others in order of their appearance in the Gallery

The two frogs from conexus. I have to say that I do not really get the message of this picture. This is certainly a nice shot of two frogs, having a good time, but I wonder where I can see any optical illusion. I also think that this picture is a bit blur even in the focal layer.

French Impression by davidtrout. Again - I find it hard to see an optical illusion - instead I see some dominant filters of a bitmap editor. It gives the whole scenery a sketch-like impression. It also shows some nice fresh colors which nicely fit to the characteristics of Paris, where you find many painters who are drawing pictures like this However, creating a painted-like picture was not exactly what I had in my mind with this topic Optical illusion.

In Hyrams almost crash I also miss a little bit the surprise - the effect when suddenly you see something else then you thought you see. As this is not a composed photo but a photo that you shot in a real scenario, you might have helped a bit to create more of this "Collision-Alert" effect by e.g. screaming very loud to the sailors so that they would have looked a bit shocked or scary . The timing was ideal - a bit further to the right and it would have been even more obvious that the small boat is passing behind the big one

Rapala's heads I like as they are not just looking strange because of the face to face situation but also because this tree and wood structure really looks bizarre - the whole face appears a bit like a monster or alien. I also like that the mirror-effect in the center, appears a bit like a portal or tunnel. What I would add to such reflection pictures are some elements that makes it more difficult to see the reflection - like adding asymmetrical add-ons.

Patrick's twin horse is a bit too obvious for me - when working with such reflections, I prefer when the resulting picture is something concrete - a new created shape which stands for itself. This picture is a bit too much "just" a reflection for me, where I have no idea, what the result can/should be (well - it might be my missing imagination that I don't see it).

johnriley's wooden octopus is a nice new creature made out of an already great tree-structure. It looks also a bit like a fractal so it leaves many spaces for imagination. The picture suffers a bit under the low resolution - that somehow eliminates some of the tiny details and also the big parts show ether some blur or artifacts. And as said before - I am a bit a fan of adding some elements to such reflection images that are asymmetrical and therefore reduce a bit the pure reflection-look.

Mivoligo’s bird is a nice sample that a good reflection requires no photoshop – I like the different parts of the picture which really show two different sides. However – the origin of this picture is a bit too obvious and even without turning it 180° it is somehow obvious, what it is and therefore not a perfect optical illusion.

Tomw’s airplane picture looks really interesting – the blue structure could be many things (first I thought it is a crop of a modern architecture). Unfortunately the plane is really blur – this would be a typical example for me, where I might have even worked with two pictures and crop the sharp airplane from one picture into the detailed picture of the parasol. I know – this is fake – but I don’t care if faking helps to improve a photo (many things in photography are illusions 

I also like the tubes from aliengrove as the replication of the tube structure in the building structure (I don’t mean the reflection – I really mean the same basic structure) makes an interesting overall composition. Also the technical quality of this picture is really good – however – again I miss a bit the illusion effect but it is a nice architecture photography.

Cokers formation picture is really an amazing lucky shot – creating this formation in photoshop is simple but seeing this in nature is amazing. Shows a bit, that animals are more than just a yummy part of our dinner. This photo is definitely a favorit for me in the category “Nature”.

Thoughton’s skyscraper corner is a wonderful architecture shot with perfect perspective and nice BW shading – crystal-clear focus and very clear structure. The only issue is, that the flip-effect of inside/outside does not happen in my imagination – I always see an outside corner (but the nature of optical illusions is, that not everyone sees it equally so it might again be my fault, that I can’t see the effect.

TOZZA27’s tree structure is surely an amazing nature structure – a bit unlucky conditions (too dark – no tripod) as the flash light somehow kills some more dramatic appearance of this structure – also a flash more from the side might have helped but I assume, that this was technically not possible. However – definitely a spot that I (whenever there is a chance  would revisit to create the same shot with a tripod or slave flash.

I like Pendridge’s pondskaters as they are either skaters on a pond or skywalkers to me – the reflection of the sky lets them appear a bit like walking directly in the sky. The contrast of blur sky and shark focus of the animals increases the dynamic in this picture. Beside all the photographic details – since I am a child I was always impressed by the fact, that animals can walk on water and always create these little dints in the watersurface which makes the whole thing look like a rubber surface.


So again congratulation to Anvh and I am excited to see which topic you select for the next competition.

Axel

Thank you Axel and your judging was perfect, you did a very good job
The entries are quite varied and I liked that and I'm a bit surprised I won since there are more special photos I believe.

It's an old photo of mine and not sure if I should compete or not for that reason.
There is hardly any photoshoping involved, the effect you see are real.
The rim is purposefully not in the frame because that's where you see the glass table it was on so to get the illusion perfect I needed to crop that out.
So what you're looking at is actually the photo upside down.
I need to redo this and use some fishing cord or something to keep the glass in the air.

RR are you now going to tell us what it was in your photo?

Congratulations to Anvh for a classy winning entry and many thanks to Axel for the competition and the judging.

I did think about submitting the photo titled 'Magic !' in Your Photos, with a bit of Photoshopping to remove the 'visible means of support', but decided to stick with an 'unshopped' entry

Hi Anvh - the base of my photo was a shot I took close to midnight in the lobby of one of the office buildings in my company (you find it here: http://www.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc/mypics/715683/display/18739026 ). I had to correct the falling lines of the pillars to a 100% vertical orientation (so that they do not create a zigzag-line in the reflections and I also modified the perspective of the illuminating light installation in the ground to make it a more realistic "energy beam" in the LHC
Finally I searched in the web for some real mechanics of CERN, cropped them and mounted them into the picture.

Your technique to create this glas, is really amazing - a great picture even when knowing how it was done (and as I said - the missing rim was only a tiny issue for me)

Ah you entered your own competition
I found it a stunning shot although I don't think you should have photoshopped in those people, it looked faked because of that without, it almost looked like a micro chip or something like that.

Congrats to Anvh, great photo.
Thanks for thorough judging Aluther.

Well done Stefan - I too was amazed by the shot and it is a worthy winner.
Well done too to RR and JudithAnn - lovely compositions.

Great judging and great English my friend - many thanks for the comments.

Holidays loom so no more entries from me for a couple of weeks I`m afraid.

Regards

Tony

Thanks for judging Axel! Great comments, interesting read someone else's views on the illusions. Congratualtions to Stefan too, even though I've seen it before I spent quite a while studying it again. I knew it would win as soon as I saw it!

Aside from the podium places I also particularly liked Rapala's photo.

Hi Anvh, I added an own picture to show a bit which direction I had in mind. I did not include the picture in the the voting - it was more a teaser

If I'd been judging I think Axel would have been my winner.. Thanks for the excellent juding Axel, your English is perectly undersandable.
Well done Stefan, you won with a fine pictrrue and well done to RR and JudithAnn too.
David

Well done, Stefan!
I,too, knew it was the winner as soon as I saw it.

Thanks for the competition, Axel, & the prompt & helpful judging.
(And your English is much better than my (o-level) German!)

Good fun!

Coker

Nice one, an excellent judging and a worthy winner. I liked the subtle colours of Stefan's image as well as the effect and composition.

well ... nothing to add ... except I believe RAPALA's is build exactly the same as mine ... just as much "a bit too obvious", no ?

Thank you for your detailed judging Alex. You did a very fine job, even with the language barrier, it was excellently presented. Your chose a hard topic in many ways, if a topic is hard, I do believe it becomes even harder to judge too. So I tip my hat to you on both accounts.

Congrats to Stefan...That is a wonderful piece of photography...of couse I did remember it from the Macro mystrey comp...where it recieved a high rating too.

Congrats to RR: I would love to know where RR's photo was during the Macro Comp Nice shot!! Now what is it?

Mivoligo, I LOVED your photo, it was a picture that really drew you in...Fantastic idea too!

Thank you for third place that was nice. I am not sure that it is noise in my shadow that you are seeing....I think it is just the rocks ect, that are in the bottom of the puddle...however darking the shadow more would have eleminated that too.

Again, thanks Alex for all the work you have put into this. I trust that you have gained even more confidance in your ability to do so....because I find your photos creative and fastinating, and therefore I do believe you will be in the judges seat again!!

Congrats to Anvh, great photo, and two worthy runners-up. Great comments on the other pictures, too, but there seems to be some confusion about mine.

I guess the optical illusion I captured was a bit too realistic: there was no replication of the tube in the building, it is all refection, which is why I entered it.

Nice thorough judgment & congrats to Stefan.

My shot was of 4 guitar picks in the bottom of a white mug, refracted through water droplets on a cd case atop said mug.

Same series different photo though link

Didn't even come close to what I had in mind

Even know, when knowing how you did it, it is still an amazing illusion - I somehow can see the picks but they still form a total unique, new structure to me. Really great shot and post processing

Hi Aliengrove - I knew that it is an reflection - what I meant with "replicate" is the fact, that both elements (tube and building) show a kind of similar structure with this glossy surface combined with the rectangular grate that perfectly fits together

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And I guess whatever that means stops it from being an illusion?

I just meant Iike the structure you captured - this was no statement if this is an illusion or not