Every month, we pick a LEGO photographer active in our community and share some of their work and a little about themselves. This month we travel to Germany to meet studsby.
My name is Chris, but in the LEGO photography community I’m better known as Studsby. I’m from Germany and also a regular resident of LEGOLAND Deutschland.
Photography has fascinated me for over 10 years, and LEGO has been a constant companion for most of my life.
The spark for LEGO photography came when I stumbled across videos by FourBricksTall and discovered the world of LEGO photography on Instagram.
As a dad with little time to head outside for shoots during the day, the solution was right in front of me, dozens of minifigures just waiting to be photographed. And so Studsby was born.
I still find it hard to put my style into a single box. Most people would probably call it cinematic, with a focus on brick-built worlds captured at eye level with the figure. Sometimes a screen or mirror makes it into the shot, or the image gets a heavier edit in Photoshop, but the heart of it is always a scene from the LEGO world, seen through the eyes of the minifigure.
My work spans official sets, minifigure series, custom creations, humor, and all kinds of franchises and nerd culture.
I have a deep love for 80s and 90s nerd or pop culture, whenever something from that era lands in front of my lens, I’m immediately hooked. Gaming themes are another big one for me.
The easier question might be what I don’t shoot and honestly that’s mostly Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, simply because I don’t have the figures.
I shoot whatever brings me joy. I shoot with a Sony A7 IV. I started out with a 70-300mm lens, but the space in my office got tight pretty quickly. That sent me down a rabbit hole, from extension tubes I eventually landed on close-up filter lenses, which together with my 50mm have become my current go-to setup.
Most of my images come together in one fluid session. The idea usually comes from inspiration I find on other accounts or from a film scene stuck in my head.
From there I build and arrange the scene with a clear picture already in mind, press the shutter, and ten minutes later the RAW file is in Lightroom or Photoshop, depending on how much editing the shot needs.
That’s where the magic happens.
Then it’s a caption, scheduled, and on to the next idea.
What I love most about this community is that everyone feels welcome. Unlike other corners of the LEGO world, nobody here picks apart your sticker placement or obsesses over set accuracy. People simply enjoy each other’s creativity and that’s what makes it so much fun.
The Exclusive Photo
I chose this image because it perfectly represents something I absolutely love doing, taking a character and dropping them into a completely different world or universe.
Ghost Rider in a medieval What If timeline felt like the perfect mashup of two things that shouldn’t go together but somehow just work.
My goal was to keep Ghost Rider true to his own character and identity while making him feel like he genuinely belongs in a medieval setting. That balance is always the challenge with crossover concepts, the character needs to feel at home in a world that isn’t his.
The biggest challenge was getting the atmosphere right. I wanted to play with two different light colors and smoke, and with that kind of setup the timing has to be perfect, you only get one shot at the moment. On top of that, it was actually my first time combining a flash with smoke, which added another layer of complexity.
Honestly? The flash and smoke combination didn’t make it into the final image, it still needs more practice. But that’s part of the process and I’ll definitely revisit it.
What I think is worth sharing is that not every experiment makes it into the final shot and that’s completely fine. Sometimes you try something new, it doesn’t work out the way you imagined, and you adapt. The image you end up with might not be what you originally planned, but it can still be exactly what it needs to be.