[PHOTOS] This Guy On Instagram Is Stealing Photos And Adding His Own Doodles
However, he is no common thief – he makes sure to credit the people whose images he has 'stolen' by linking to their Instagram accounts. His is an Instagram account with a quirky twist. Enjoy!
By Sadho Ram — 03 Jan 2015, 02:39 PM — Updated almost 10 years ago
Lucas Levitan is a Brazilian illustrator living in London. He has a long-running Instagram project called Photo Invasion, where he quite artistically (and literally) invades strangers' Instagram posts.
The tongue-in-cheek cartoons that Lucas adds to other people's Instagram posts completely changes the story behind them. Like, this exotic photo of Gisele Bündchen doing head stand, becomes all the more exciting with 'Manoel', one of the many characters from Photo Invasion, trying to express his feelings to the actress.
Another one of the invaded post is from a Paris-based photographer Saúl Aguilar featuring Anne Sophie, a photo model. In this gorgeous shot Lucas added 'Bosgo' who is heartbroken after the beautiful Anne left him with a note that read: "Bosgo, I'm not ready to love an illustration. Adiós. Anne!"
Somewhat absurd but completely brilliant, the quirky illustrations, apart from changing the stories behind the posts, also showcases his vivid imagination which is filled with one-of-a-kind sense of humour. They often depict familiar scenes or people placed into humorous, awkward, and often compromising situations.
Upon being asked where did the idea come from, Lucas said:
"...I never took illustration so seriously. I started this project by illustrating over my own pictures as a way to change the narrative. I shared it on Instagram and people started commenting asking for me to invade their own photography, and I thought 'oh, that's a project that I would love to keep doing!'"
londoncalling.comHe calls it Photo Invasion as a way to interact with other people's images. Lucas says the project has taken him somewhere he really likes, creating this unexpected partnership with photographers.
"By interfering with their images it makes them think about what they've created not as a finished project, but something that sparks off other peoples' understanding. Create a new narrative and a new story line."
londoncalling.com"I don't take the images so seriously. Taking the image and creating a little joke, trying to find the sense of humour that I have in the image. It's one of few projects that I could say: that's me."
From beachgoers being vacuumed up by a lady to a man playing harp using cables of a bridge, Lucas is transforming the oftentimes rather benign photos into something ridiculously hilarious
If you like his work, be sure to follow Lucas on Instagram, and see his other work on his personal site. Hat tip to Neha Vaswani for tipping the curator of this story about the Photo Invasion project.
