What is so special about this photo?

You may have already seen this, but I just received this via email, loved it and so the post.

If you look closely you will realize why this National Geographic picture (Week 4 of this issue) is so interesting. Click on the image to view its full size.

Can you guess?

Disclaimer: This photo is the sole property of National Geographic. The photographer is George Steinmetz and the image is called Larger than Life. I have written to him and have received his permission.

Thanks to Gary for raising the point about copyrighted photos.

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Post Details

Post Date :: Saturday, Mar 18th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Category :: Forwards and Fun Stuff
Tags :: camels, Forwards, Fun Stuff, illusions, National Geographic, photos, pictures
Do More :: Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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90 Total Responses to “ What is so special about this photo? ”

Comments:

josue salazar says:
March 18th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Ajay, i’ve been looking at it for like 30minutes and for the life of me i cant figure out whats so special.
Ajay says:
March 18th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Hi Josue, will wait for a few more comments (hopefully).

I am sure someone will guess it, or else I will post
Icabod540 says:
March 18th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
It is taking the photo from above the camels. The images we see are the shadows stretched across the sand.
Fin says:
March 18th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
It’s a top down view, the sun’s shining from the bottom, and the camel shapes are their shadows.
antonomasia says:
March 18th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
The large black camels are shadows of the small white camels - seen from the air of course. Neat photo.
Nick says:
March 18th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Ones a horse
alecu says:
March 18th, 2006 at 4:45 pm
cool, the camels are actualy shadows of camels … ingenious picture!
Tim says:
March 18th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Couldn’t figure it out myself, but the comments on Digg said that it is actually the shadows of the camels. The photograph was taken from above. Looking at it again, it becomes quite obvious. Good one.

By the way, nice Preview window.
kleenview says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
The shadows of the camels look bright. The legs on the shadows are pointing downwards when they would be expected to point upwards. Not all of the camels have bright shadows. In the lower left side of the image a bright shadow appears to be going through the body of the 5th camel from the bottom. The shadows of the rocks seem to be 180 degrees different than the shadows of the camels.
kleenview says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
It looks like the ’shadows’ are the camels and the silhouettes are the shadows
Brian says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Its a aerial shot, big deal, you’ve never seen shadows before?
bob says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
The black area is the camel’s shadows. The view is from top. thanks
Azhar says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Its a picture of a pinting I think,the camels look 2D.
AveryDeDog says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
It’s a satellite image. You know, like from outer space. Like, say 100 miles up. By remote control. With big-ass lenses and computer enhancment. Think Sputnik on steroids with a 1.3 megapixel camera and Verizon Wireless to beam the picture to your Verizon account and makes your cell bill really high. So high that this is the only picture you could afford to take which is too bad. I had ATT but I wanted a new phone but they told me I had to get a Cingular phone and I didn’t want that because what if the satellite wasn’t compatible so I guess the camels in the picture are better than nothing.
Azhar says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:43 pm
I know I know,under the camels are turtles!Those things are turtles,yay I win!
Azhar says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
(Not real turtles,but they are)
Elendil says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
I think these are camels painted on a wall.

Realy nice idea and picture. : )
vaughty says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
is it because they’ve taken the photo from directly above to make the shadows show on the ground in the way they do?
guri says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
It’s the perspective. Theimage is almost exactly shot “straight down”. The shadows are massively exaggerated by the angle of the sun
DG says:
March 18th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
It is an aerial photo. The black camels are shadows.

Help us out, what are we missing?
Robb says:
March 18th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
Looks digitally altered to me: many of the camels appear identical, and they appear to be “standing” on a shape that also appears to be identical.
flint says:
March 18th, 2006 at 8:08 pm
shouldn’t the shadows be more stretched?
Joel says:
March 18th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Walking over water!!! te water is the dark spot of sand!
roz says:
March 18th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
It’s a painting on a wall. Look closely at the texture of the “sand.”
Sarit says:
March 18th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Beautiful =)
vamsi says:
March 18th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
intresting! was scratching my head for a while now.
collapsibletank says:
March 18th, 2006 at 11:46 pm
There are no people…
Chaitanya says:
March 18th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Nice photo.

kleenview said:

In the lower left side of the image a bright shadow appears to be going through the body of the 5th camel from the bottom.

That’s what I thought too. But remember, a camel has looonng legs. There’s quite a lot of space between its body and the ground. The shadow is not passing through its body, but under it.
dreams2text says:
March 19th, 2006 at 12:31 am
cmon bozos read the neighboring comments, if u can imagine urself, top view… sunrise/sunset … black camels r shadows… cmon… enuf guessing soo many guys hav figured it out… why bother!!!
Paul Sanchez says:
March 19th, 2006 at 8:11 am
I loved the picture. Sorry to go off topic, but I have seen “Why search for this post when you can bookmark it?” buttons a few places.

I was wondering is this a plugin for wordpress? I would love to put that in my blog. Any info would help. Thanks.
Andy Dabydeen says:
March 19th, 2006 at 10:50 am
Very cool!
Ajay says:
March 19th, 2006 at 11:18 am
dreams2text,

I too am very surprised how I am still getting varied answers.

But, now I want to see what else people can observe in that picture
Ivan Minic says:
March 19th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Shot from above, and posotion of the sun is opposite?
indrax says:
March 19th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
There are two different colors of camels.

At the bottom, just above the words ‘Her hakki’, I saw a camel casting a shadow, even though it’s bodt appeared to be in the shadow of another camel. Then I realized that it’s body was just that dark.

I couldn’t find any reference to dark brown camels, so I assume it’s not another breed. Are they muddy?

I think one poster was right about the water, you can see one camel taking a drink.
I don’t see any horses.
AntsPants says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
Someone is sitting on one of the camels. Third row down (the camel is really the only one in that row) and it looks like the camel is drinking
Jad madi says:
March 19th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Nothing special at all ?
Justin M says:
March 19th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
wohooo camels on skateboards!

what is the secret about this picture?
i can see that the camels are shadows……is that “the secret”?
Tony of the bachelor cooking says:
March 19th, 2006 at 6:45 pm
THIS IS AMAZIN PHOTOGRAPHY…THE PICTURES WE SAW ACTUALLY WERE SHADOWS..
Evenstar says:
March 19th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Its a painting, isn’t it?
Arion says:
March 19th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
i thought it was a cave painting at first,but now im not sure, i could be an arial photo, or a digitally altered one… who knows
michigan says:
March 19th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
also: the red patch on the ground is much like a map of the great lakes
Luke says:
March 19th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Very nice picture. But what’s the big deal?

The picture is of the camel’s shadows.
Luke says:
March 19th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Actually, one of the camels in the bottom left corner looks like it’s standing on top of a shadow - the shadow should be on top of it.
Ed Kohler says:
March 19th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
What a cool photo. I’d much rather be in the plane than walking across such an arid region of the world. I’ll concede it to the camels.
SV says:
March 20th, 2006 at 1:52 am
It took me some seconds to figure out what I was seeing, but my mom still doesn’t get it.
baldo says:
March 20th, 2006 at 5:31 am
nice picture
Seema says:
March 20th, 2006 at 5:54 am
The shadows of the camels look like Dinosaurs to me!
leo says:
March 20th, 2006 at 6:44 am
whoah! cool. finally figured it out!
dave says:
March 20th, 2006 at 8:07 am
There are no camels in Blackpool! this is some kind of photoshop trickery!
Fofe says:
March 20th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
The photo is taken exactly from the top of camels … so shadows are like 3D… it’s amazing… It’s early afternoon and the sun Shining so much that the skin of the camel become white or to say much clearly gold…
(thats happens in Greece a lot)so that’s the odd about this picture…
Thank you.
Fofe
Eric Gates says:
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:29 am
They are on Mars?
Aaron says:
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:35 pm
They’re not camels?

Turtle crushing camels?

There’s a donkey doing a camel somewhere there?

As Nick said, one is a horse?

Nice one!
tinker says:
March 24th, 2006 at 10:35 am
a beautiful picture!! a pity that some thought only “big deal”–what other wonderful things are they missing out on? thanks for the post.
RJ says:
March 29th, 2006 at 2:29 am
You guys have all missed the point COMPLETELY. The fascinating thing about this photo is that the shadows are all painted on the ground. The photographer JUST HAPPENED to be cleaning the bottom of his zeppelin as 47 or so camels JUST HAPPENED to be in the exact right spots to line up with the paintings. My 6 year old niece could even figure this one out. And she’s only 5. Come on guys, get with it.
Jazz says:
March 29th, 2006 at 9:14 am
It’s not a photo…it’s actually a photoshop trick. The sand isn’t really sand; It’s a piece of wood or photoshop wood..(see the wood grain). And the camels look like random shadow images. Also there are 48 camels in the “photo”…camels usual travel in packs of 2-20. All in all it still looks kinda cool.
Cash says:
March 31st, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I figured it out. The distance between the trails is exactly the length of their shadows. It seams as if these camels are afraid of their own shadows.
Under Dog says:
April 2nd, 2006 at 2:31 am
Got it. The seventh camel shadow from the top right appears to be smoking!
The Godman says:
April 4th, 2006 at 1:49 am
The camel in the middle (bottom) is facing the wrong way
dannyelectro says:
April 4th, 2006 at 1:55 am
people c’mon… a camel has 2 humps, a dromedary has one hump…
ZaChErY says:
April 4th, 2006 at 1:20 pm
im so stuped
Under Dog says:
April 15th, 2006 at 9:10 am
That’s it! There aren’t any camels in the picture at all! Cool!
Prashant says:
May 9th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
hey ajay
i have seen this photo sometime back while having a coffe at Barista it was a wallpaper on a lady’s laptop.
from the first glimpse i find it strange . i just noted that it has camel and shadow and nat geo logo i did google and find it at your blog
thanks
Ajay says:
May 9th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Hello Prashant,
When did you see this wallpaper?

This post got really famous, and has been recommended by many
Frenchie says:
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:36 pm
The interesting thing about the photo is this. The picture must have been taken as the sun was setting to cast the shadows in the direction depicted in the picture. This would cause an unusually long outstreched shadow unless the camels were traveling along the side of a hill. In this picture, the sun was probably below the natural horizen (from sea level) and the sun’s angle is upwards towards the camels as they traversed the hillside. This also explains how the shadows of the two close camels don’t fall on each other.
ARGYRO says:
June 16th, 2006 at 4:26 am
IT IS NOT A PHOTO!

they are not shadows,they are hands

everybody can see something different or maybe cannot see anything at all!!!
Isabella says:
August 26th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Wonderful photo !!
Takes your breath away once you’ve figured it out !!!
Manny Hernandez says:
September 9th, 2006 at 5:53 am
A coworker sent me the image today. I was blown away! Incredible perspective from the air: talk about looking at things from a different perspective.
Derek Lamar says:
September 11th, 2006 at 3:23 am
I finally found this site to explain it to me…. thanx… duh… I have been working with photoshop for so long I was trying to figure out why someone sent this obvious painting to me…. too many shadows just looked like rubber stamped images… but NOW…. I can’t believe I was so asleep and stupid…. what a glorious optical illusion…. the mind manifested in a moment in time capturing the infinite variety of life’s eternal surprises. Many thanks to you all. And for those of you who said “Big Deal!” I can’t complain because that’s where I was when I first saw it. It’s okay… I was probably expecting to find Waldo or Osama.
BJ says:
October 20th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
But what about the 2nd shadow - if you look carefully, there is a shadow immediately below each camel, how can that be?
And the one that shows someone sitting on top whilst it is drinking - if you zoom in on it, it (the camel) doesn’t look any different from the others.
Is it a hoax?
Derek Lamar says:
November 1st, 2006 at 3:29 pm
It isn’t a hoax. That is what blew me away. When I finally looked at the larger picture of it I could finally make out that what we see as the camel is actually an elongated shadow and what looks like the shadow at the feet is actually the camel itself viewed directly down as in an aerial view. Marvelous play of light and texture and illusion and balance and order and movement and stop motion and obviously at some point… self observation. What this is similar to is one of those paintings where the water is reflecting the dock and you see the boats and people and the reflection but it is actually turned upside down and what you see is the same thing but blurred above in ripples and clear but upside down below… the optical trick is that we think the shadow or reflection to be the opposite of what is really taking place. Much like Quantum Physics: you don’t know if you are discovering reality and develop thoughts about or whether or not your thoughts about reality is what create it.
Steven says:
November 3rd, 2006 at 5:55 am
Hi Guys,

Just thought I wold add my 2 cents to this Blog. It is a wonderful picture and is certainly valid.
Obviously no-one (except me bothered to check the national geographic web site.

http://seabed.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wallpaper.tmpl?issue_id=20050201
Sewnewzy06 says:
November 14th, 2006 at 5:10 am
This is the most incredible photo I have ever seen. Truly awesome!
Little Money says:
January 12th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Those things under the camel’s shadows i thought were crocadiles lol.
Diablo says:
February 24th, 2007 at 12:49 am
I see it now! Hundreds of Camel Toes!
Bruce says:
April 22nd, 2007 at 10:07 am
as neat as it is in my opinion I personally think this is a composite! (can you say photoshop)

Now why would I say something like that

ok it is good job but look very closely

look at the sun angles .. it changes between the camels (small changes and you might buy off on that) BUT

look closer

1) there are in fact TWO shadows of the camels… a very close one .. which could only be made with the sun high say 45 to 80 degrees … which matches with the back shoulders of the camel being lit up … And of course the added LARGE shadow which wold only be made if the sun was VERY LOW … . last I looked we don’t have 2 suns

2) there is also one shadow with NO camel (If it is making that much shadow then it HAS to be receiving light…) yet he has other camels with shadows across them …

3) look at the camel .. 2nd row from the bottom … 3rd camel from the left … it should have a shadow on it if the light blocking was that much to produce that shadow … sorry it has NOT shadow on it .. it should have one …

there are other inconsistancies … can you see them?

I think this was TWO pictures put together and yes it looks great but

actually I would like to know if I am wrong but unfortuanately I don’t think so

Trackbacks & Pingbacks:

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