I have been getting very inspired by a technique of superimposing one image on top of another. I love the textured effect you can achieve and the marrying of the precise and the random can result in some happy surprises.

There is something about a layered image which suggests a story to me. Much like meeting a person there are qualities which might strike you immediately and some which are more subtlety visible and take a more sensitive eye to see.

This image is a combination of a photo I took in Angkor Wat of a Buddhist monk having his breakfast. We had gone to watch the sunrise which was unfortunately obscured by cloud that morning.  It was still a worthwhile experience being part of the silence and the beginning of the day in the temple.

The painted image is from my sketchbook. I will often play around with colour and texture (this one has bits of loo roll incorporated!) I do this with no particular purpose in mind and will take photographs, keeping them in my ‘backgrounds’ library where they wait patiently to see if there is a further use for them. I found the dead butterfly on our first visit to the temples and wanted to include it in this image, lending a sense of beauty and transience.

Here is the techie bit… you drag both of your images into photoshop. Choose one and click select all, then copy it. Then go to your second image and paste the first one on top of it creating a new layer.  Next you noodle around with the opacity control until you find a marriage of the two images that looks good to you. Then flatten the image, you can further fiddle with the filters, colours, saturation etc if you choose. Once you know a few basic techniques it’s easy, don’t forget to have fun and play around!