18 Drawings You’ll Swear Are Actual Photographs

Take a look at the image above. Pretty surreal. At first glance (or second, or third), it looks like a photograph — maybe a little faded, compared to most high-definition shots we’re now used to, but a photograph nonetheless. Right?

It’s actually a ball point pen drawing by Portuguese artist Samuel Silva, based on Kristina Taraina’s photograph « Redhead Girl. » Silva used seven different colored pens and spent nearly 30 hours to recreate the photo.

Take a look at a few of Silva’s other illustrations, as well as works from Miguel Endara, Paul Cadden and Dirk Dzimirsky. Some used ballpoint pens, while others worked with graphite and charcoal. However, they all have one thing in common: these incredible works are definitely not photographs.

Have any other illustrations made you do a double take recently? Share them with us in the comments below.

Ballpoint Pen

Image courtesy of Samuel Silva

Image courtesy of Samuel Silva

Image courtesy of Samuel Silva

Image courtesy of Samuel Silva

Image courtesy of Samuel Silva

Image courtesy of Samuel Silva

Pencil

Image courtesy of Miguel Endara

Image courtesy of Paul Cadden

Image courtesy of Paul Cadden

Image courtesy of Paul Cadden

Image courtesy of Paul Cadden

Image courtesy of Paul Cadden

Image courtesy of Dirk Dzimirsky

Image courtesy of Dirk Dzimirsky

Image courtesy of Dirk Dzimirsky

Image courtesy of Dirk Dzimirsky

Charcoal

Image courtesy of Dirk Dzimirsky

Image courtesy of Samuel Silva

http://mashable.com/2013/04/26/drawings-photographs/