We invited taskera_photography to do a review from a photographic perspective of the Icons set 11372 Autumn Cottage Garden and this are her thoughts!

I love Autumn and all its colors. The reds and oranges and yellows that call for warm and cozy.

This set gives the same vibe, the plants and the color scheme transports us to a little cottage in the middle of the forest in the Autumn. It is full of life, with squirrels and birds all over the place. There are so many corners and pieces in the set to shoot. I added some tiny LEDs, because the windows and lamps were calling for them, and added some fake foliage to the background (also Autumn colors).

The little cottage is full of details, with the bird coming out of the window, and a chimney and a cooking table inside. But unless you want to fully disassemble the cottage it is not easy to shoot inside.

The worse part? It is not minifigure size. It is the standard for most of these decorative sets, but it does limit the creativity in those shoots. The little gnome can be a nice protagonist, and I am still unsure if it is a garden gnome or the owner of the house.

Behind the scenes

Here is a quick overview of the setup, with the fabric/plastic plants in the background, LED powered by batteries and a reflector to bounce the light off into dark places. I did not use a main light, since I had the big window above and it was a beautiful overcast day (hence diffused light in the set).

I moved and interchange the trees for different photoshoots, which are already built to do so, this way there can be more scenes to be created. Adding the lights to the outdoor torches was easy enough with some Blue Tack, hoever for the ones inside the house I had to partly disasseble the house. Because of this, I was not able to get a great shoot of the indoor of the cabin, even though it has a cute table and fire place.

I also moved small plants and animals around, but the cart is hold with some grooves on the floor. It can be moved, but I like the view of the wheels going doing the earth.

It also would have been nice to have some Koi tiles in the water! I have some at home, so I will probably add them at some point too.

Overall, it is a beautiful set, with many chances for detail and minifigure-less photography. It is not cheap though ($119.99, €109,99), so it really is up to your budget. Thank you Brickcentral for the gift of shooting this! I had lots of fun looking at all the details.