#Star wars black series scenery how to#
#Star wars black series scenery series#

#Star wars black series scenery series#

However most are the 6″ Black Series or Legends series. My first action figure was a 20″ Deadpool. It is all I’ve shot in the field in months… tho I do still do LEGO shots in studio. I didn’t really think about it until I had to add a whole new category to my portfolio site just for action figure photography. I have also been going along a similar journey. New Discoveries. Once I opened my mind to the possibility of non-LEGO toy photography, a whole new world has opened up to me! I’ve been focusing a lot on the Black Series figures yes, but there are countless other toy manufacturers and toy lines out there! Every day I discover new action figure photographers and skim through their hashtags to find out what kinds of toys they’re using.The shots I took for the “Choices” and “Action” podcast episodes are prime examples. I’ll always love the limitations that come with photographing LEGO, but there’s something very freeing and exciting about being able to play around with body language and posing. Articulation!!! There are some stories you simply can’t communicate as clearly with a minifigure.Perhaps because my subjects are so much taller? It’s very different shooting a 6 inch figure than a 1.5 inch LEGO minifigure! The distance that’s needed between myself and my subject, the focal length, and even the kind of lens I choose have all changed, and it’s exciting to experiment! I also find that I’m shooting a lot more in portrait orientation than landscape.

#Star wars black series scenery how to#

I’m practicing new camera techniques and re-learning how to use my lenses.

I think I’m more driven to these action figures for a number of reasons: Since arriving back home though, only my action figures have made it in front of my camera lens. I don’t make it to the beach very often, so I didn’t want to leave feeling like I’d missed some photographic opportunities. I made a conscious effort to photograph a bunch of LEGO on the second day, because I knew I’d feel disappointed otherwise. Thanks to for lending me his Black Series Dewback! So, I stuck with LEGO and was very happy with my work. I loved the work of people like Father’s Figures, but felt that that particular niche was out of my league. Of course, as I started discovering others in the community, I quickly realized what a big deal action figure photography was.

I was a LEGO photographer! Other toy lines weren’t even on my radar for anything other than collecting. I didn’t see myself as a toy photographer. Those few times I did stray and photograph other toys, I felt like I was driving on the wrong side of the road, or going against my nature. LEGO had always been my favorite toy growing up, so getting back into it after years spent in the LEGO-free “Dark Ages” felt natural and exhilarating. They’re highly LEGO-focused, so as I studied their work and tried to emulate it, I turned to LEGO. They were my Mount Rushmore of toy photographers I strove to be just like them. I first discovered toy photography when I stumbled upon the work of Shelly (back when she was with BrickCentral), Vesa, and Mike Stimpson. It wasn’t a conscious choice to exclusively shoot LEGO for so long. A whopping 75% of those shots were taken this year! Starting with LEGO I went back through my catalog of images and found that only 10% of them weren’t of LEGO. I followed that up with a few non-LEGO toy pics in 2017, because of my review of Funko’s Rick and Morty figures, and my first Star Wars Black Series purchase: My all-time favorite droid, K-2SO. After that, I waited over a year, until nabbing this shot of a Hotwheels AT-ST. I didn’t take my first entirely LEGO-free toy photo until the Seattle Toy Photo Safari in May of 2016. That shot even had some LEGO in it, so it may not even count.

I didn’t start experimenting with non-LEGO toy photography until August 2015, nearly two years after getting into the hobby. To really figure this out, I had to crunch some numbers.