There are more ways than most people realize to map a flat image onto a sphere – though the results are invariably surreal and often incredible. These five phenomenal photographers take amazing panoramic images and wrap them to create fantastic floating planets from simple scenes. How small is your world?

Wonderfully Elegant Little Worlds by Gadl:

Alexandre Duret-Lutz – aka “Gadl” – started with the old point-and-shoot approach just a few years back but has since graduated to spherical panoramas and spirals. In a short time, he has gone from capturing ordaniary scens to carefully and selectively exagerating key elements in his complex spherical compositions, playing with tone, contrast, foreground and background. Gald also has a number of helpful links for people who want to create planets of their own.

Beautiful HDR-Edited Scenic Spheres by Heiwa:

Heiwa is a Japenese photographer who layers iterative editing methods to create complex visual compositions from simple or even otherwise dull-seeming scenes. Sometimes he plays up a single element, allowing it to press out of the core ‘planet’ of his spherical shots. Other times he adds HDR and other effects to enhance tones and heighten surrealistic effects.

Vibrantly Colorful Natural Mini-Planets by Seb Przd:

These wonderful seasonal planetoids are far from Seb’s only impressive photographic works. In fact, he bends and twists images in all kinds of ingenious ways. His experiments with conformal mappings have carried him far beyond spherical compositions and he has, at times, explored dozens ingenious alternate ways to represent a single scene or recreate as single image.

Urban and Rural Spherical Scenes by Boltron:

Nate Bolt – aka “Boltron” – is an adept photographer even when he is not tinkering with complex three dimensional view of beautiful rural landscapes or stunning city centers. His spheres, however, have a way of showing the most urban and rural extremes and of highlighting critical elements, from tall buildings to landmarks, that fall within the scope of his photos.

In-Your-Face Spherical Panoramics by Vitroids:

Masakazu “Matto” Matsumoto – aka Vitroids – is a self-proclaimed “maker, programmer, wanderer data-miner” this Japanese photographer takes an upfront approach to creating his little worlds, bringing elements sharply into the foreground to confront the viewer. In some cases this involves letting structures envelop the scene and in others this means taking photographs from seemingly impossible viewpoints.