How to Do Optical Illusions in Photography

Optical illusions often change the viewer's experience of 3-D space.

Learning optical illusions in photography trains amateur photographers in the principles of vision, allows serious photographers to make interesting decisions in photographs and, on a basic level, impresses friends and family. When beginning to create optical illusions with photography, start by emulating illusions seen elsewhere. For example, use pieces of construction paper taped to a wall to copy the café wall illusion, where slight changes in the placement of red and white bricks changes the shape of the lines created by the bricks.

Things You'll Need

• Building blocks with attachment heads
• Digital camera
• Detachable shutter release
• 2 tripods
• Telephoto lens

Instructions

Setting Up

1. Set a flat, building block (4 attachment heads by 8 attachment heads) on your work surface. These are thin pieces with several heads for attaching other blocks.

2. Build a stack of five blocks, of the 2 head by 1 head size. Alternate colors so that the illusion is more visible.

3. Attach an 8 head by 1 head block to the top of the stack of five blocks. Repeat this, so that your final piece looks like this from the ground up: five blocks, 2 by 1, and two blocks, 8 by 1. When attaching your 8 by 1 blocks, attach so the longer side of each set of blocks goes in the same direction, with 1 attachment head extending off one side of the five block base, and 5 attachment heads extending from the other side.

4. Affix your stacked blocks to the corner of your flat building block, so that the corner 2 attachment heads of the flat block’s 4 attachment head side inserts into your stack.

5. Build a stack of three 2 head by 1 head blocks. Again, alternate colors so you can see the different blocks.

6. Attach the stack of three blocks to the opposite corner of the flat block than your stack of five. Attach so that the long sides of the blocks run parallel to each other.

Photograph

1. Insert your detachable shutter release into your digital camera.

2. Attach your telephoto lens to your camera. When it comes to optical illusions, normal camera lenses give several visual clues as to distance, ruining the effect of the illusion. For example, objects farther away from the camera get much smaller. Instead of using larger items in the background of this optical illusion, taking a highly magnified photo from a great distance reduces the foreshortening greatly.

3. Attach your camera to a tripod, and set it across the space from where you want to take your photograph. Use a clean space with very few objects in it. The farther the camera is from the building block setup (as long as the item is still visible), the better.

4. Attach your building blocks to the remaining tripod, using glue or tape. Use any attachment method you wish, as long as the method is not visible from the top of the piece.

5. Tilt the blocks at an angle on the tripod, where the lowest corner is the empty corner closest to the stack of five blocks with the top pieces and the highest corner is the empty corner closest to the stack of three blocks. Look through the lens on your camera. If you can see the optical illusion without any “tells” giving the effect away, take the picture. If you can see “tells,” adjust the angle on the block tripod until you can no longer see them. Press the detachable shutter release button.

References

• Visual Illusions; The Principles of Artistic Illusions; Donald E. Simanek; December 1996
• Exploratorium: Café Wall Illusion

Resources

• Mighty Optical Illusions: 3-D Photography Optical Illusions; January 2007
• Visual Funhouse: 14 Perfect Shot Photography Illusions