I’ve had a scene like this brewing in my head for the last couple of weeks but since I was on vacation in Spain and the UK, I couldn’t shoot it. But today, my son and I bested jet lag and woke up at a reasonable time to bike to this secluded spot along the…
Category: Behind The Scenes
Behind the Scenes: Dudu Simas
I love seeing photos of minifigs in natural environments. When they’re well matched to their scale and the narrative, the results are captivating. More often than not, photos like these are taken outdoors by unflinching toy photographers ready to soil their knees, lie on rocky beaches and risk losing their minifigs to wind and water…
#inthestyleof Amber: The Music Attic
Several days ago, I went behind the scenes with Amber to see how she shoots her warmly lit brick vignettes and I also launched the #inthestyleof_nocturnelle9 challenge. I’ve got to admit, I thought this challenge would be a breeze since I already had a smaller modular CREATOR set to use as the brick-built environment and…
Behind the Scenes: Amber
Yellow is the color of happiness, and the color of realism, or at least that’s how Amber likes to think about the light she uses in her LEGO photography. Warm light — amber light — plays a big role in her work: “I’ve always loved the feeling of realness that warm light can add to…
#inthestyleof Renner_Lego: Cereal Unicyclist
In the second installment of the #inthestyle of series featuring Renner_Lego’s fun photo of a waiter tripping and spilling sugar cubes, I issued a challenge to use real food and minifigs in action. I didn’t want to buy anything so I scanned the fridge and the cupboard, taking mental inventory of the food items in…
Behind the Scenes: Renner_Lego
Toy photography lends itself to whimsy, and LEGO minifig photography even more so, but Renner_Lego’s work takes the potential for playfulness up a notch with the illusion of freezing action through compositing. It’s his photos with food in particular that caught my attention. Far from the unimaginative minifig-in-your-lunch snapshots taken with a phone, Renner_Lego’s concepts…
#inthestyleof The APhOL: The Prisoner
Last week, I posted a behind-the-scenes look at one of The APhOL’s photos and challenged myself as well as other toy photographers to recreate the look of “Sculpting”. I didn’t want to use the same subject of a sculptor though, but I wanted to try the technique of creating a dark environment, streaming light through…
Behind the Scenes: The APhOL
There are few LEGO minifig photographers whose photos make me smile and fewer still that make me stop to admire their work, but The APhOL gets me on both counts every time he posts on Instagram. Looking at his Instagram feed, you might not find a readily discernible style, but that’s also its appeal. There’s…
My Favorite Babysitter: The Video Arcade
When the Toy Photographers launched their contest about nostalgia, one of my first thoughts was of the video arcade I used to go to when I was a kid. A good part of that childhood was spent in dimly lit video arcades. They were a cheap babysitter for a lot of parents in my area,…