We’re familiar with composting food, but composting photographs? For a new photo series, Ajay Malghan set out to see what dirt, water, and other forces of nature would do to his pictures.

It turns out the process can leave behind ghostly patterns and texture (when it doesn’t completely destroy the photograph). “Any wrong move (hand bumping the tray, syringe slips etc.) ruins the image,” he tells The Creators Project. “Most of images don’t work out.”

Sometimes “not working out” means the photo disintegrates, but other times the result is a psychedelic mass of color, as in the image below:

Malghan collected his successful photos into a series called Collaborations with Nature, some of which can look charming and vintage, or turn the freeze-framed woodlands and waterfalls into something out of American Horror Story.

Visit Ajay Malghan’s website for more inventive photography.

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