Inspirations: How to Create Fantasy Landscapes with Multiple Exposure Photography

The Series

I wanted to create a series of images which has birds as a central theme to give a fantasy feel to landscapes that I had already taken. I also wanted to change the colour palette and so the ‘Reimagined’ collection was formed. Although these posts have now stopped going up on Instagram and Facebook I have no doubt that I will continue to make them as they are fun to make and on a drizzly week in December they will add a bit of colour to my life! All of these images are in my 2025 calendar which you can buy HERE - For all my news join my free biweekly newsletter.

How the images are created

All of these pictures have been created in photoshop by using them as layers and changing the blend modes of each layer. If this sounds complicated then do have a read of this blog first: How to use Textures in Multiple Exposure Photography which looks at combining only two or three images. I have used a base image for each picture showing the subject that I want as the focal point. I have then added one or two layers of sunrise colour to produce the pinks and oranges, several layers of birds and then on occasions a texture on the top of that. The different colours also depended on the blend modes that I used and this will vary between each composition and the colours of the original exposure. So I want to take you through how I created a couple and then give you a flavour for the rest of the series. Below are the layers I used for the above image (which is probably my favourite in the series!) These are in order from the top of the stack to the bottom. The tree is an in camera multiple exposure of a tree in Gothenburg, Sweden, the bird images are all different and are starlings from a murmuration in Brighton, the sunrise - is self explanatory!

The process for making ‘Swedish Tree - Reimagined’

All images I have kept at 100% opacity and fill and have use the blend modes from bottom to top of the stack

First layer of birds (above the tree): soft light

Second layer of birds: hard light

Third layer of birds: linear dodge

Fourth layer of birds: difference (this gives one layer of white birds)

The sunrise layer: vivid light

I have then taken it into lightroom and fiddled with the colours a bit more and made it a square crop. Of course there are many different variations I could have used and depending on what layers you choose to use there will be some variation so please don’t expect this to be a perfect recipe for achieving this look with different images. I hope it gives you ideas that you can go away and play with.

The Process for making ‘Cyprus Mosque - Reimagined’

I have included the layers in the gallery below - again, from top to bottom in the same order as they are in the final image. I also may have moved the sunrises using the free transform tool to get the clouds in a more aesthetically pleasing alignment!

First sunrise layer: Vivid light

Second sunrise layer: Exclusion (this made the pinky parts of the original image)

First bird layer: Colour Dodge

Second bird layer: Difference (this created the layer of white birds)

Third bird layer: Saturation

Fourth bird layer: Colour Dodge

Again, this was taken back into Lightroom for some final tweaks

The process for making ‘Eastbourne Pier - Reimagined’

This base image already had a pinky sky and was taken as a long exposure - though that is not integral to the picture it became! I wanted a grittier feel for this one so this is how it evolved….

So, from the bottom upwards:

First sunrise image: Vivid Light

Second sunrise image (this was rotated so the cloud was on the laft hand side of the pier): Vivid light

First bird image: Subtract (this made the white bird layer)

Second bird image: Soft light

Third bird image: Linear light

White paint image: Divide

This also took some work in Lightroom as I used a lot of desaturate and upping the shadows to achieve the effect I wanted.

I hope that this has given you some ideas to play with, I do love working with bird layers. Do have a look at my other blogs and if you are new to this process consider taking one of my courses or workshops to really be able to unleash that creative potential - There are live demos on each course and workshop, many are online and the courses contain both homework and feedback!

Here are some of the other images from the collection…