Photographs don’t always reveal their full selves, even after you spend some time looking at them. They still have the power to baffle and confuse us.
These pics won’t break your brain , but you’ll probably feel more and more disconnected from reality as you move through the list. They didn’t have to be like that — but they certainly are.
“Where’s the loop?”
We’ll start off with a doozy. Either that shadow is from a different cable that’s off-camera, or there’s some serious weirdness going on here. It just goes to show us that we shouldn’t mess with the shadow realm.
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“A building with no depth.”
I know that false-front buildings were a popular architectural choice back in the day, but I’m struggling with this one. You can see windows with curtains in them, all in a section that appears to be one foot deep.
“Building looks like it had rendering error.”
Here’s part two of our series on buildings that look like they shouldn’t exist. Once again, the ‘flat’ section appears to have windows. I wonder what this looks like from the air, or on Google.
“I accidentally took a pic of my dog at a weird angle and most people can’t tell if he’s at the top or bottom of the stairs.”
Well, this dog is obviously at the bottom of a staircase. Or maybe the top. Man, I don’t know.
“My local library moved into an old grocery store.”
On one level, I get it: libraries need shelves and grocery stores have shelves. But why would they keep the freezer doors on the shelves? Are the books going to spoil or something?
“Cat-snake.”
Cats have a way of just kind of melting into their surroundings and stretching out in ways that makes them look more liquid than solid. I guess this cat’s just decided to do away with most of its body and be a snake.
“Townhouse in DC has a cute little model townhouse in its front yard (and the model has its own model!)”
This is some real townhouseception stuff. I mean, the model is so detailed that it took me a second to realize it wasn’t full-sized.
“A big dog with a small head.”
If we want to be body-positive towards dogs, we can’t judge them even if they have miniscule heads. Or if they line up in such a way to make it look like their head is tiny.
“This sign is so unsettling.”
I need more details here. What if people only hear seven short blasts? What about eight long blasts? What’s the evacuation plan? This sign is long on ominous words but extremely short on actual details.
“I’m actually struggling to work this one out.’
Alright, let’s piece this together by counting the legs. Uh…that’s a real forest of legs and doesn’t really help anything. I’m pretty sure there’s a fourth person here whose face you can’t see, but I’m not positive.
“Not actually t-rex arms.”
When you take a good, long look at this image, it starts to look more normal. You can understand what’s going on with her arms. But an initial glance is always going to reveal stubby little t-rex arms.
“This picture of my friend’s daughter looks like she’s levitating and missing both legs.”
Alright, I give up. With every other pic on this list, I can work out what’s going on. Not here, though. I can’t for the life of me understand what’s going on with her legs.
“Marabou stork waiting in a bathroom.”
Here’s a photo that, without context, is pretty weird. But in this case, I actually have the context: this is a zoo animal that was moved into the washroom to shelter from Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
“Dog creates a face.”
This is one of those trippy images where you’ll either see the face, which looks like a black and white silhouette, immediately, or you’ll struggle for fifteen minutes trying to figure out what everybody is looking at.
“This extremely disturbing face swap.”
Face swaps are one of those things that seem fun, but usually wind up terrifying. I mean, do you need to see your face on other bodies that badly? Do you want to do it enough that you’d risk seeing this?
“Copenhagen train station looks like two images.”
I love pics like this, where you can find a divide that neatly bisects the image to make it look like separate images. Even the lighting is dramatically different on both sides.
“A disguised secret witness testifies in a courtroom on a drug case. Washington, 30 April 1952.”
I think nowadays, they’d just have this witness record their testimony and have their voice modified. Back in the day, though, they dressed these witnesses up like spooky ghosts.
“A dog that looks like an arm.”
If this wasn’t captioned in such a way that explains what’s going on, I would have absolutely no idea a dog was in this pic. It looks exactly like a human arm clumsily pointing at the screen, but it’s not an arm.
“Cat napping in a model village.”
This is one of those instances where you need to give things a second look, then maybe a third. Otherwise, if you just had a quick glance, you’d think that giant cats roamed the earth.
“Someone was selling this bean bag chair online and they erased their face to conceal their identity.”
Blurring or blocking out faces in a pic is nothing new, but there’s something about the way she did this that I find extremely unnerving.
