The Magic of Multiple Exposures
with Manuela Thames
June 9 – 26, 2026
Course Description
Multiple exposure photography adds depth, dimension, and dreamlike, surreal qualities to your work. In this new online workshop, you move beyond basic double exposures and explore advanced techniques for combining three or more images into a single photograph. While this course is the second part of a two-part series, you do not need to have taken The Magic of Double Exposure Photography; if you already have the foundational skills in multiple exposure photography, you’re ready to jump in.
Led by fine-art photographer Manuela Thames, the six-session workshop focuses on the creative possibilities of multi-layer imagery. You begin by expanding your digital workflow in Adobe Photoshop, learning advanced techniques such as blending modes, layer masks, and other essential tools for complex compositions. The workshop also introduces elements of digital collage, including composition strategies and foundational design principles.
In the second half of the workshop, you learn how to create in-camera multiple exposures of up to nine images, exploring how to balance intention and spontaneity while working directly in the camera.
Each session combines technical instruction with guided image review and discussion of example work by multiple-exposure photographers across a wide range of genres and styles. Through hands-on assignments, you develop your artistic vision through experimentation, imagination, and play. The workshop emphasizes experimentation as a key part of the creative process and a pathway to building a more confident and personal visual voice.
Additional Information
WHO SHOULD ATTEND:
What You Should Know:
This workshop is designed for photographers who are ready to elevate their multiple-exposure work beyond the basics.
To participate, you should have access to a DSLR camera with a multiple exposure setting, and you should already feel comfortable creating double exposures in Adobe Photoshop and in-camera. Prior completion of Magic of Double Exposure Photography is recommended, but not required.
Special Notes:
Class will meet 9:30 – 11:30 am (Mountain Time) on Tuesdays and Fridays starting June 9 and ending June 26 (six online group sessions). Enrollment is limited to 12 participants.
Zoom Video Conferencing software (available for no charge from Zoom.com) will be used to facilitate the class sessions. Further details will be emailed to registrants.
Santa Fe Workshops always aims to produce a high-quality experience for our online attendees. That said, variables including regional and local internet provider speeds, traffic on Zoom's servers, and your own computing hardware can contribute to a less than ideal streaming event. While we do our best to minimize the impact of these variables, they are outside the control of Santa Fe Workshops.
Policies:
View Withdrawal and Transfer Policies for online programs.
For the convenience of participants, recordings of each class session are posted privately for one month after the end of each session. Santa Fe Workshops takes the recordings down after one month to protect the intellectual property of our instructors.
about
Manuela Thames is a photographic artist based in Saint Paul, Minnesota where she lives with her husband and two children. Born and raised in Germany, she moved to the US in 2004 after marrying her American husband. Shortly thereafter she began her photography journey after two life changing events happened within one year, the birth of her first son and the death of her brother.
Largely self-taught, Manuela uses various photographic techniques to explore themes around loss and grief, her personal experience with generational trauma, as well as the notions of belonging, connection and what it means to be human. Within that she continues to explore human ways of coping, the strength that evolves out of suffering and our common desire for healing and journey towards wholeness. Much of her work consists of black and white, conceptual self-portraits.
Manuela’s photography has been described as contemplative, evocative, dark, and cinematic and has been widely exhibited nationally as well as internationally. Her “Trauma” series won 1st place conceptual series of the year in the Monovisions Award in 2019, and in the same year she won the 13th Julia Margaret Cameron Award in the Self-Portrait Category. In addition, her work has been published online and in print in such places as Black and White Magazine, Sun Magazine, Dohdo Magazine and Shots Magazine.
Website: manuelathames.com
Instagram: @manuelathames
