larger than life

We're learning about how things are magnified, so I put up these pictures of this bottle up. They're both taken from the same distance, so the characters on the bottle definitely get larger because of the glass. Because the characters get larger, the glass can't be acting as a diverging lens, because those only create smaller images. And as a concave lens, the letters must be within one focal length of the glass because that is the only time the image gets bigger and stays upright. However, because it is within one focal length, the image is only virtual (it can't be produced onto a screen). Light doesn't go through the lens and merge at one spot, but the eyes work it out so that the image can still be seen. Appearances are definitely deceiving.