Kathryn Cooper began photographing starling murmurations—those stunning aerial displays of thousands of starlings swirling together in the sky—in 2017. “The way starlings behave in a group is a beautiful example of a field of science called complex systems,” says Cooper, who has a degree in physics and a doctorate in network science, which is the study of those systems. “‘Complex’ simply means that there are lots of interacting parts”—in this case, the birds. The fluid movement of the flock is breathtaking, she says, as is the sound of thousands of small wings beating.

Starling murmurations have often been photographed, but Cooper’s work stands out for its technique and presentation: She captures multiple successive exposures of the flock and then overlays those exposures to create one image. Some of Cooper’s images involve hundreds of consecutive exposures and others just a handful, she explains. She captures the consecutive frames using HD video and layers the frames in post-processing. She uses a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV camera, a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS II lens, and a Gitzo Mountaineer tripod.

Amanda Arnold is a senior editor.