We are all familiar with the presence of advanced special effects in movies and imaging, but can we always tell what is real and what is not? New Jersey-based artist and photographer Matthew Albanese builds miniature dioramas depicting false but amazingly realistic landscapes, and he experiments with fantasy vs. reality.

Although the artist photographs small-scale scenes, in his resulting images, they appear to be in real scale. His creations are made using all types of materials including ostrich feathers, cotton, plexiglass, chocolate, and nuts. Albanese said, "I’m trying to change people’s perspectives of small objects by creating something big with them. I’m always looking at materials and seeing what I could do differently with them."

Combining creativity and a good understanding of visual perception and imaging, Albanese makes well-planned pieces that are effective in presenting an illusion that not only tricks our eyes, but also leads us to question whether what we see is always what is real. In today's image-based world, this is undoubtedly on everyone's mind, anyway.

[via PSFK]