While casually browsing Quora this weekend I happened across this unusually unremarkable collage of images along with the comment take a second glance at this. I did just that and to my surprise I started to realise I was looking at a single image. A composite of real life objects arranged in such a way to appear as four frames separated by an invisible line.
Look at it again, this is a single photograph!
Bela Borsodi, the Austrian born photographer is the mastermind behind the image. It was created back in 2011 for the experimental electronic jazz artist Susanne Kirchmayr under the name VLP and released as the album cover for their latest work, Terrain.
The use of objects to force a perspective is not a new idea in photography and has been attempted and even mastered by many others. Tim Noble and Sue Webster took the art scene by storm in the ’90s with their shadow play by using discarded rubbish to create unique street scene silhouettes. What Borsodi manages to do with his camera is successfully turn the uncompelling into a remarkable scene.
In fact, as with all examples of forced perspective, the only position that can see the correct way the space has been manipulated is through camera. Here’s a side on view, which changes everything:
The use of colour to separate the quasi-scenes is interesting too with a markedly warm corner (bottom right) standing out from the much cooler remaining three. Whether its intentional or not we were surprised to see yellow missing from the entire colour palette. Only a couple of tell tale signs truly reveal the connection around the whole frame, most notably the lampshade arching through three and a tea spoon casually breaking through the false dimension at the bottom.
Borsodi shot 1082 frames through his camera during the construction which gradually shows how the random collection of objects comes together. The video below has also been featured on a Japanese TV show, although understanding why is a bit beyond our comprehension. We can determine they were as shocked as expected though.
Thank you to Bela Borsodi for allowing the use of his image on Phogotraphy. Its these sorts of inspiring works created by photographers that we love to share with our followers. If you have any tips, please send them in via our social media pages and we’ll check them out.
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