Aydin Büyüktas, an Istanbul-based photographer and VFX artist, used a drone to capture aerial images of the city, then digitally manipulated them so they appear wildly curved. The middle of each image is a straight overhead view, but the perspective shifts toward head-on as your eyes move toward the bottom of the frame, creating the illusion that the viewer is about to fall into the photo.
A 3-D animator by trade, Büyüktas writes that Flatland aimed to bring “another dimension” to photos of places that were familiar to him. His twisted, sloping series of images is called “Flatland,” after the 19th-century satire of the same name, but everyone seems to think it was inspired by Inception.
It might not be a coincidence that “Flatland” has blown up online this week: It makes a perfect visual response to rapper B.o.B’s wacko flat-Earth ramblings, which everyone on the internet (especially Neil DeGrasse Tyson) spent Tuesday taking too seriously.
