They Look Like Impressionist Paintings At First, But Take A Closer Look. These Are INCREDIBLE!

These stunning photographs are some of the most incredible images I’ve ever seen.

The moment I saw Matt Molloy’s photographs I thought I was looking at an Impressionist paintings! But the tools he uses for creating these amazing images are very modern.

The Canadian photographer uses a technique he calls “time stacking”. By layering hundreds of photos digitally, Matt creates the final image. He begins by taking hundreds of photos of the same skyline using time-lapse techniques and then digitally stacks the images. The colors and shapes emerge from the multiple layers and are very reminiscent of paint brush strokes.

Matt’s time stack images were inspired by star trail images he took. “Once I made a few star trail images, I wondered why I’ve never seen this technique used on daylight time lapses,” he told 500px.

He says his best results come from shooting a scene which contains fixed and moving elements (e.g. clouds moving over a landscape). The speed at which the clouds move make a big difference in the end results. Here are a few more examples of his time stack work. Prepare to be awestruck!

“I cut myself out of one of the first photos from this timelapse and put myself into the “time stack” version because 1) I couldn’t stand perfectly still for that long, and 2) The way I make “time stacks” is by merging all the photos of a timelapse together which adds all the lighter elements together, and that would erase everything but the white parts of my coat.,” Matt wrote of the photo below.

Matt also put together this useful “time stack” tutorial video for photographers that may want to give his photography technique a try.

You can see more of Matt’s spectacular time stack photographs on 500px, Flickr and Facebook.

Share Matt’s awesome images with your family and friends!