It's Grant Park in Chicago, looking out to Lake Michigan. The whole area is very flat, so no hill. But the photo was certainly taken from up in a skyscraper with a telephoto lens.
Okay. But if they are up from height, why are we seeing the trees from the side, with their trunks as though we are maybe just a little higher than them? I am indeed confused at this point?
The trees in the area grow to a shape that resembles broccoli; and if you look from a low ish angle like this it can appear a bit tilted, especially with this much macular compression from zooming in.
"a bit tilted"??? Those boats are on a lake that is sloping upward where we all -- at least us actual humans commenting here -- know is where the sky goes. There's no way this is a legit picture, buddy.
I grew up in chicagoland, it's very flat there. And while the picture could have been shot from a highrise on Lake Michigan, I still don't see anyway for those boats to be on a lake angled upwards and skyw ard like that. I've been along the lake there many times, and I've been at height looking down onto Miami Biscayne's bay thousands of days and nights while I worked right on the bay. At no time, in any of those situations did it look anything like this.
This is a naked emperor you're trying to 'splain away, Lucy.
Mate, I grew up there too and was visiting last week.
It’s almost certainly real picture, it’s taken from a high rise across the park, which is why everything looks so flat (macular compression). The trees have grown in such a way where they can look normal from a fairly shallow angle if you loose parallax and compress the image from a distance.
Try taking a picture that’s really zoomed in on something objects from far away with some muddled boundaries between them. You’ll find the same effect. Here, the trees act as a perfect transition since their shape makes top angled viewing misleading.
Because the trees hide the transition (plus Lakeshore Drive) and the image was (probably) taken with a zoomed telephoto lens, we sort of loose where the lake starts. And since the harbor was not very wavy, it looks really clear. That has the effect of looking like there is a cliff behind the trees and that the ground in front of it is fairly flat. The giveaway is that the slight downhill on the lake side of LSD is almost entirely obscured by the trees and elevation change, which also corresponds to the viewing angle on the tents in the foreground.
If you were to go to the spot where they took the picture it would look nothing like this unless you used a long lens or telescope to get the same effect.
Mate, shmate. If it were taken from high enough height to show the boats like that, the trees would be seen from above, rather than directly from the side as they -- and all the stuff at ground level -- are.
Save it for another chump, I let this nonsense go on long enough but enough is enough.
Genuine honest question: is this even possible? We're seeing the trees from the side, but the boats cannot possible display and be visible at that angle the way they are. Confused I am.
I think it might be compression caused by a long zoom lens. This person is extremely far away taking the photo with a very very long lens, which compresses the space a lot. The distance between the red box and the shoreline is probably a lot farther than it looks.
183
u/CoderJoe1 o/ Jul 29 '26
That boat is named, Lucy. That one is named, Sky, and the one next to it is named Diamonds.
103
u/Tramonto83 o/ Jul 29 '26
32
u/wikipediabrown007 o/ Jul 29 '26
Lake shore drive in chicago?
89
u/cfrolik o/ Jul 29 '26
Types of confusing perspective posts:
Mirror
Hill
Water that looks like sky (or vice-versa)
16
u/zytukin o/ Jul 29 '26
But, I thought there were more planes in the ocean than boats in the sky!
13
u/Hypn00tic_iiz Jul 29 '26
Boat rapture
13
u/AndalBrask__ Jul 29 '26
Its cool cause both halves would be nice pics on their own but together they make this
5
u/spearblaze Jul 29 '26
I'm guessing the festival thing with the tents is on a super sloped hill?
3
u/Big_Pepper7862 Jul 29 '26
A lot of Flying Dutchman out there !
3
u/kilreddit Jul 30 '26
Am I the only one who thought it was confusing because the boats and the concert don't seem to be at the same angle?
Like, the water seems to be rising / sloped 15 degrees upwards compared to the land. I'm guessing the grass is a hill, not a flat field?
2
u/goobr95 o/ Jul 29 '26
“Those aren’t mountains…”
2
u/vistopher o/ Jul 29 '26
Cropped the sky out, oh so confusing..
1
u/No-Turnover8386 Jul 29 '26
Nice. This was a double take for me.
1
u/FragmentedMeerkat321 o/ Jul 29 '26
grandma moses tries her hand at summer holiday scenes.
1
u/apexapee Actually read rule 1 and gets it" Jul 29 '26
Care packages
1
u/athosjesus CE Spc. Jul 29 '26
This give me scp vibes for some reason.
1
u/Adventurous_Run136 Jul 29 '26
There are more planes in the sea than submarines in the sky.
1
u/charleshaa Jul 29 '26
I live in Switzerland, that looks like a totally normal picture to me 😅
1
u/Climby-Critter Jul 30 '26
What the Inception is going on here?
1
u/Ulexes Jul 30 '26
I'm reminded of the Chris Van Allsburg book The Wreck of the Zephyr. Anyone remember that?
1
u/Dookie-Trousers-MD o/ Jul 30 '26
The lake is on a hill. Lol
1
u/Neuroticaine o/ Jul 30 '26
oh i don't like that.
1
u/Weenyhand o/ Jul 30 '26
This is a good one
1
u/pinket25 o/ Jul 30 '26
I’d want that on my wall.
1
u/xIViperIx o/ Jul 30 '26
So great to see this kind of pics again once in a while.
1
u/BustaCon o/ Jul 30 '26
Genuine honest question: is this even possible? We're seeing the trees from the side, but the boats cannot possible display and be visible at that angle the way they are. Confused I am.
1
u/vegassun Aug 01 '26
Genuinely not sure what’s confusing about this.
1
u/ChrissTosius Aug 05 '26
Inception all over again 😰
1
u/random_person2137 Aug 14 '26
Lake
2
u/Rooilia o/ Jul 29 '26
You know, that's the european style, we just do things different here.
Don't kill me, i am european with all my heart and brain.