Dinosaurs, Spaceships, Tornadoes, Oh My! Photographer Creates Fantasy Worlds for Son

When children play, they often immerse themselves in make-believe worlds of their own creation. Photographer and musician David Niles was inspired to create fantasy montages of his son Nate, now 9, while watching him with his favorite toys. "I was inspired by his imagination and what kind of imaginary worlds he was interested in," he tells Yahoo! Shine. "I wanted to put him into those worlds." When he embarked on the series two years ago, Niles says he was looking at a lot of 19th century photography and wanted to mimic the sepia tones and blurred quality of that era. The photographs were produced with a digital camera and Photoshop and he layered in scanned pages from an 1803 encyclopedia that were stained and buckled to add texture. As for Nate, he's more interested in the activity than the images. "We were in a bookstore one day and I showed him a photography magazine that included his picture," says Niles. "He said, 'Eh, I guess I'm famous' and wandered away." -Sarah B. Weir, Shine Senior Writer