15 Pics From The Group That Shares Photos That You Might Need To Look At Twice To Understand

As a person who has pretty high myopia, I'm used to my eyes playing tricks on me. What's more concerning during hikes is when a person with 20/20 vision next to me points out a bird or some other critter blended in with nature that I didn't initially see. That's usually a recipe for a mild heart attack.

Simple things can sometimes look more interesting from certain angles, and, luckily for us, there's an online group where folks document such photographs: the Confusing Perspective subreddit. Scroll down if you're up for some silly and interesting visual surprises!

More info: Reddit

15 PHOTOS

#1 It’s A 3D Blanket

#2 Dinosaurs

#3 How Did He Fit In There

People like pictures where their brains trick them into something that isn't there. The Forced Perspective subreddit currently has two million members (or 'confusers,' as they call them). There's one thing to note here: the community wants you to know they're not about pareidolia or things that look like other things.

The Redditors here are interested in photos taken from a certain perspective, which results in some kind of optical illusion. Usually, it's what photographers call "forced perspective." Good examples of forced perspective are photos people like to take while traveling. They manipulate the scale and depth of objects to make them appear smaller or bigger, closer or farther away.

#4 Just An Owl Disguised As A Giant Moth To Give Someone A Heart Attack

#5 My Nephew Is Half Dog Half Boy LOL

#6 Lycanthrope

Many filmmakers use forced perspective in their films. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a great example, where the director Peter Jackson made the average adult-height actors look like small hobbits. It's an optical illusion of sorts: by placing objects that are bigger and farther away from the camera, you can make them smaller in scale, and vice versa.

Who hasn't fallen into an optical illusion rabbit hole at 2 A.M. and seen the most popular ones like the classic black and white spiral, the "Rabbit or duck?" picture, or the cafe wall where every line is straight but appears crooked? Yet pictures aren't the only media where our brains can't tell if what we're seeing is true or not. Architecture has its fair share of optical illusions, too.

#7 A Photo I Took In An Abandoned Factory Using The Reflection In A Puddle Of Water

#8 Our Dog's Paw Looks Like A Mini-Version Of Him

#9 The Cerberus Starter Pack

Another interesting example of forced perspective is the buildings at Disneyland, the Snow White and the Sleeping Beauty castles in particular. The ground stories of both (and many other buildings in Disneyland, for that matter) are full-scale. But all the upper levels get exponentially smaller.

#10 Defying Gravity?

#11 One Eyed Dog

#12 How Baby Cats Are Born

What's the point of building the Disney castles with upper stories decreasing in height? It gives off the illusion of grandeur; as you enter Main Street USA, the castle looks huge and very far away. Yet when you're walking back from it towards the exit, the street seems much smaller and that much more manageable. 

#13 Skinwalker

#14 See-Through Newspaper?

#15 Leg Spreading In The Nude

Do you know who else used forced perspective in architecture? The Ancient Greeks! The Parthenon, for example, has columns that are thicker in the middle than the ends and a slight bulge in their platforms. That's so that they appear straight from a distance because parallel lines tend to appear to converge. When the columns of a building taper off at the top, the buildings would also appear larger from a distance.