The Hidden Art of Camouflage Photography | Webdesigner Depot

4 Feb

The Hidden Art of Camouflage Photography

Art, Compilation, Inspiration
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Camouflage has always been a wonder to us.

It allows animals and plants to remain indiscernible from the surrounding environment through deception.

Adopting this concept, a new wave of camouflage artists use special techniques for their photographs that allow them to show people blended into their surroundings.

For each photo, the camouflage artist must meticulously design a new camouflage suit in order for the effect to work.

This article features the work of two prominent camouflage artists: Liu Bolin and Desiree Palmen. See if you can find the people in these photographs…

Liu Bolin

Liu Bolin is a Chinese artist who creates art in protest to the actions of the Chinese government, who shut his studio down in 2005. He will work on a single photograph for up to ten hours, and often pedestrians will not notice him until they actually run into him.

F

Desiree Palmen

Desiree Palmen is a talented Dutch artist who also uses photography to produce her camouflage art. She patiently paints the camouflage on by hand on cotton suits, matching them to the background.

Compiled exclusively for WDD by Zoe Ajiboye.

Which ones did you like best? What do you think of this type of art?

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57 Comments »

#1

Charlie
February 4th, 2010 at 8:21 pm

Woooooooooo, nice! The yellow truck one is amazing!

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#2

michael
February 5th, 2010 at 11:28 am

woooowww thank you photoshop

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#3

Laura
February 5th, 2010 at 7:18 pm

Yeah I know what you mean, it find the person by the hair detail on the side. But it’s one of those ones, one you see it, you can’t un-see it. Amazing!

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#4

Rudy
February 5th, 2010 at 8:35 pm

How day do that ?

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#5

Walter
February 4th, 2010 at 8:22 pm

@Charlie – it took me a bit of time to find that one!

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#6

Charlie
February 4th, 2010 at 8:27 pm

Yes! The only detail are the shoes, but the rest is very nice hidden!

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#7

Rahul - Web Guru
February 4th, 2010 at 8:36 pm

@Charlie @Walter… I very much agree with you both. I was looking at all the odd places to find the person.

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#8

roy
February 4th, 2010 at 8:41 pm

Bit late on this one WDD. Seen it a million times.

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#9

MJRTOM
February 4th, 2010 at 9:15 pm

Maybe you should send them your email address, Roy. You could screen their posts, so they’ll never again post something that’s old to you.

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#10

Ryan
February 4th, 2010 at 8:41 pm

I absolutely love the Desiree Palmen image of her laying her head down on the desk with the newspapers. Brilliant!

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#11

Preston D Lee
February 4th, 2010 at 8:49 pm

These are phenomenal! These would be fun to try out as well. What an incredible idea. Thanks for sharing.

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#12

David Ingledow
February 4th, 2010 at 9:13 pm

This is the most amazing thing that I’ve ever seen!

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#13

insic
February 4th, 2010 at 9:22 pm

wow! cool, something new Very nice WDD

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#14

New York Web Design
February 4th, 2010 at 9:36 pm

Mind Blowing. I never Seen anything Quiet like this… Its Outs this world…

Thanks for putting together this awesome List… .. Its wonderful

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#15

Dimi
February 4th, 2010 at 10:17 pm

Holy Crap!

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#16

Stelian Andrei
February 4th, 2010 at 10:49 pm

These must have taken a colossal amount of work to create. I for one love the one with the bookcase. I actually can’t see the head of the person

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#17

Laura
February 5th, 2010 at 7:21 pm

me neither! =D

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#18

Toyota Sudden Acceleration Lawyers
February 4th, 2010 at 11:32 pm

Creative — and truly incredible art.

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#19

Carla | Green and Chic
February 4th, 2010 at 11:40 pm

Great work! Now I have something else I need to learn!

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#20

Taylor Steele
February 4th, 2010 at 11:58 pm

Wow, this amazing! I’m going to post this page to my over 25 000 + Twitter followers!
Great job, I think this is certainly a great new ave for photo art and can’t wait to see more art like this!

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#21

Sebastian Otto
February 5th, 2010 at 12:09 am

amazing work

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#22

Jake
February 5th, 2010 at 1:19 am

These remind me of when Tobias was a Blue Man on Arrested Development.

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#23

Jack
February 5th, 2010 at 2:42 am

Really nice and interesting. Thanks for sharing these.

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#24

RyanStruck
February 5th, 2010 at 2:52 am

Stunning work. Very creative!

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#25

Xander Skyrien
February 5th, 2010 at 4:43 am

This is really cool stuff; at first, I thought it was simply some sort of transparency filter in PS, but knowing that they’re HANDPAINTED is incredible. I’m impressed at their effort; personally, I’d probably try to mimic the effect digitally =)

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#26

peach
February 5th, 2010 at 6:32 am

Very creative indeed. Pretty damn awesome job!

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#27

José Luis Cáceres
February 5th, 2010 at 6:49 am

Amazing

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#28

mullerjeanfrancois
February 5th, 2010 at 7:15 am

great site.

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#29

Andreyco
February 5th, 2010 at 11:38 am

some of them are unbelievable!

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#30

john safran
February 5th, 2010 at 2:28 pm

wtf is tht real amazing!

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#31

Toemack
February 5th, 2010 at 3:50 pm

Amazing photopraphy. Is there a hidden message behind the “shooting” pic? Of course!

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#32

A.D.K.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:01 pm

wow, interesting ideas

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#33

BigM75
February 5th, 2010 at 5:04 pm

to be greativ, very cool

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#34

Source
February 5th, 2010 at 5:39 pm

awesome pictures, i’d like to try to create something like this

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#35

Jordan Walker
February 5th, 2010 at 5:50 pm

That is crazy photography, but sort of neat in as a secret stealthy ninja.

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#36

Suhas
February 5th, 2010 at 6:14 pm

Super Awesome!!

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#37

GPI
February 5th, 2010 at 7:12 pm

That’s amazing… Great works

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#38

kimmydee2010
February 5th, 2010 at 7:17 pm

I love you photography! Especially the American Flag!
Superb work my friend!!!

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#39

Laura
February 5th, 2010 at 7:21 pm

Very cool, I haven’t seen this before but loved so much of them. The yellow dumper truck one is finished to such a high standard. And liked the next one with the road barrier; just an interesting composition.

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#40

Aak
February 5th, 2010 at 8:05 pm

Good work.
They can try this out as a movie…

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#41

Richie
February 5th, 2010 at 8:12 pm

exceptional… but just for a 5 minute photo shoot, i wonder how much time he wasted on painting…. alternatively, 1 minute work using blending modes in Photoshop.

but, i admire his creativity

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#42

adam
February 5th, 2010 at 9:21 pm

Seems pretty popular in Asia, but nonetheless pretty awesome.

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#43

User Experience Design Student
February 6th, 2010 at 2:06 am

This is seriously amazing. At first i tought it was just a photoshop trick. Then i realised the guys are painted themselfs. 3 words: A..MA..ZING

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#44

Anja
February 6th, 2010 at 6:56 am

respect!

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#45

Webtoolfeed
February 6th, 2010 at 5:44 pm

Wow these are kinda freaky.

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#46

eunice
February 6th, 2010 at 9:05 pm

Creative! I’m now wondering how do create those effects…

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#47

Java developer
February 7th, 2010 at 1:58 am

It’s really very creative

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#48

Autonomy
February 7th, 2010 at 6:58 am

These are amazing! What a great concept and beautifully executed. Bolin’s work is especially poignant. Thanks for the great collection of pieces.

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#49

spindle
February 7th, 2010 at 10:39 am

Any one know how it’s done?

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#50

Retheesh
February 7th, 2010 at 2:57 pm

Awesome Collection…..

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#51

aizuddinmanap
February 8th, 2010 at 3:34 am

cool man.

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#52

Johnson Koh
February 8th, 2010 at 1:55 pm

I’m amazed with the one where he is standing in front of the cup noodles!

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#53

Roshan
February 9th, 2010 at 3:40 pm

how do you do that?

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#54

jeprie
February 10th, 2010 at 2:50 am

thats crazy. incredible.

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#55

Reglan Side Effects Lawsuit
February 11th, 2010 at 10:30 pm

Great set, really impressive stuff.

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#56

Webdesign Aalen
February 23rd, 2010 at 5:30 pm

A wonderful work!

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#57

aurel
March 16th, 2010 at 10:38 pm

amazing work – and in some case, the background plays a really important part and could be used to tell a story of how people feel within their given space.

(if is not made using photoshop) i wonder how long it takes to make the costumes

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