Recently, we’ve been on a real optical illusion kick! There’s just something so cool about being able to go on a virtual treasure hunt from the comfort of our own couch.
Luckily, there are plenty of awesome examples on the internet to comb through—and while our skills have improved so much so that it’s pretty hard to fool us, we’ve come across one that really had us scratching our heads!
The above image was first posted to Instagram by Swiss photographer Tiziana Vergari, a celebrated artist who has enjoyed quite a bit of social media fame over the years. Tiziana submitted it as part of the site’s #Whpidentity contest, and perhaps unsurprisingly, her trippy photo swept the competition.
When Tiziana first posted the now-legendary picture, she gave it the simple, yet straight-to-the-point title of “How many girls?” Because the photographer was posing the question, her followers immediately got on the case.
Can you solve this visual riddle?
Now, when we first took a look at the mind-bending image, we automatically felt that this optical illusion was out of our league. Sure, we can pick a cat out of a woodpile or find a hidden snake in a backyard, but there were just TOO many puzzling components in this picture!
For one, the girls are all wearing identical dresses, their skin and hair tones are practically indistinguishable, and even their expressions are eerily similar. Right off the bat, we counted 13 girls—but this ain’t our first rodeo; we knew this image’s riddle couldn’t be THAT straightforward.
Because the act of solving the perplexing question was starting to bring on a headache, we decided to do a bit of internet sleuthing for clues. As it turns out, Tiziana frequently enlists her daughters to model in her photographs. Once we secured that helpful tidbit, we ruled out the ’13 girls theory’.
These days, most people don’t have more than a few kids, so we figured that, if these girls were, in fact, her daughters, the number would likely be much lower than we initially projected. Though this clue sure was a strong one, we still didn’t have enough evidence to make even an educated guess.
Next, we focused in on the idea that there had to be some sort of double-mirror involved. We took note of the girls’ heights, jewelry, and hair lengths; we started to feel certain that there were far less than 13 girls in the image, but how many could there be—2, 5, 7?! Talk about confusing!
If you’re just as stumped as we were, be sure to watch the video below for the answer. Hey—even if you don’t THINK you’re stumped, the answer to question of “How many girls?” will likely surprise you. Looks like we’ve got to brush up on our optical illusion skills!
We can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this incredible visual puzzle! How many girls did you think were in the photo? Did the answer surprise you? What is your all-time favorite optical illusion?