It’s a stunning photo. A 3,300-ton ship appears like a two-story house next to a giant skyscraper of ice. But there’s more to the photo than meets the eye.
The iceberg, which actually only extends six feet above sea level, appears larger than life because the photographer captured the image while only a few feet from the ice. The ship, on the other hand, is 600 feet away from the camera.
Photographer Rick Du Boisson, a chemist, captured the image in Antarctica’s Paradise Bay in February. “The icebergs in all their varied shapes are quite amazing,” he said. “The intensity of the blue color is quite incredible.”
While this photo is a work of visual deception, some icebergs would dwarf even the largest sea vessels. The world’s largest iceberg, known as B-15, is 170 miles long and 25 miles wide.
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Write to Justin Worland at justin.worland@time.com