(REUTERS) - An English photographer is creating a photography book showing colourful fantasy scenes, while documenting the process on film.

The book, called Wonderland, features dramatic set piece photographs taken in the woodlands of Surrey in England.

Artist Kirsty Mitchell said the scenes were inspired by her mother who passed away in 2008.

"My mother was an English teacher of over 30 years. Her life's great passion was storytelling, literature and books, the way that art and photography are for me now," she says in the film.

"I felt I needed to do something that would celebrate who she was as a person, and creating this project as a book intended in her memory was how this journey began," she added.

Mitchell began the project back in the summer of 2009. The book is compiled of 74 photographs, some of which took five months to prepare, Mitchell said.

The scenes in the book are not recreations of existing characters but are reflections of various memories Mitchell has of reading stories with her mother, she added.

Since asking for funds on fundraising website Kickstarter, Mitchell has raised more than £200,000 (S$ 434,000) to publish the book, which is expected to be printed in December.