How Toy Photography Made Me a Better Creative

I’m a worldbuilder at heart. Crafting new settings through different mediums is something I’ve come to enjoy. First explored through my writing, this fascination with creating experiential worlds for an audience now stretches into some of my ‘lesser’ skillsets, like video and photography. (I won’t be attempting drawing because that talent died so many decades ago. I’m still in stick-figure land!)

I’ve always enjoyed trying to capture scenes I constructed with my toys. According to some old photos I found, thanks to my parents, my first attempt was at the age of 10-ish. Our house had an atrium that housed my dad’s rose garden, so naturally, my brother and I took advantage of the “outdoors made indoors” and had elaborate, multi-day summer battles between our Star Wars and G.I.Joe toys. Epic barely describes how amazing those summer stretches were.

And during that time, I attempted to capture some of our setups on a tiny Kodak film camera.

Since then, I’ve had a preoccupation at times of capturing my various toys in photos.

In 2013, I rediscovered LEGO. At the same time, I was feeling particularly adrift with my non-work writing. After a discussion with my wife and a promise, I acquired the massive Death Star kit. At the same time, I began pushing myself further into toy photography, specifically with LEGO.

I’m not a great LEGO photographer by any means; I’m still awestruck by some of the amazing talents on display by artists in a couple of the toy photography groups I’m in. But what I did find is that the more I pushed against self-imposed boundaries in the photography medium, the better my writing became.

Here’s three things I discovered during that journey.

Reflection: Patience is a true virtue

It takes time to set the scene just right. Before using LEGO as my main subject, the bulk of my toy photography was miniature models, usually pewter (or lead, in the 1970s-80s made minis). Because these are assembled once and then painted, you have to take time well in advance to figure out how you want to photograph it, especially what scene you need to construct (if any). Many miniature models are done with simple solid backgrounds because it’s pretty difficult to create an elaborate backdrop for one particular post, color set, and more. I took photos of miniatures assembled and painted by serious hobbyists, who would incorporate faux lighting effects into the detail, which triples the difficulty.

LEGO gave me flexibility in creating settings since everything is poseable and constructible. But it didn’t make it easier. While I could custom-build the setting and poses, other details like lighting and angle became more important. But working through these new challenges felt good because I was building on what I knew, and the results at times were stunning.

But I needed to embrace patience. Those results took time, effort, and energy. A great image often came about after multiple hours (and hundreds of shots). And yes, many (many!) times I gave up. Through persistence (and innate stubbornness), I slowly got better. You have to be patient with the process—and yourself.

Inspiration: Take it out of the box

One thing I noticed around this time was that my work writing had become very formulaic. The old structure I’d been taught – and relied on for years – had salted my creative earth to the point that I was turning in words to feel busy. This was also creeping into my more creative work gigs, which really concerned me. A lot of my writing joy comes from these creative endeavors.

At the end of 2016, I decided I needed to push myself in LEGO photography. I determined to do a 365 photo project, which I’ve seen other photographers do where they strive to take one photo a day. The idea was to get into the habit of seeing things through the camera lens; you’re not expected to craft the perfect photo each day but simply do the act. In time, you begin to find some traction in creativity, spurring you to really think out of the ordinary for the day’s subject.

I put my own twist to it, making it a 365 project that specifically required a LEGO Minifigure as the photo’s subject. Over the course of the year, I tried (and failed) a lot of the time, but I gradually experimented with outdoor settings, lighting, depth of field, setting environment, black and white, and more. I started waking up thinking about what to do with the day’s photo opportunity.

Pushing my comfort zone

In the end, I finished the year with 355 photos. I lost the photos for the last 10 days of the year due to an SD card failure. But I made it! I look at those photos today, 4 years removed, and still remember many of the stories, backgrounds, and characters I made up with my LEGO while crafting their scenes.

The thing is, all of this out-of-the-box creative thinking seeped into my writing, too. Recently, I looked at a 2016 story I’d drafted and compared it to one I wrote in late 2017. The difference in the first drafts alone was remarkable.

It also impacted my approach to work writing. The site copy was tighter, cleaner, properly toned. But more importantly, my creative energy really took hold in strategy and campaign construction. My push past those old box walls opened up new ideas to explore in communication. The immediate results are obvious, with a slew of awards and requests to present. Since then, it’s just gotten better. I’m approaching the end of my sixth year at my current employer, the longest stretch of salaried work I’ve ever had. And every day, I find a new and exciting challenge to tackle.

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Wonder: Tell the story without telling it

The key point that really strikes home with me when I look at my toy photography hobby and its continual hold on me is the idea of telling a story (or stories!) without actually writing anything. Any great photographer already knows this because that’s a big reason why they’re good at what they do. But reading about it and actually experiencing it are two different things.

Until I pushed myself into this unexplored creative wonderland, I found ways to tell stories through traditional words using all the methods familiar to a writer like a plot, structure, and character. Through the visual medium, especially in the whimsical realm, such as toys, is similar but very different.

The scene, the subject, the lighting – these are just parts of a creative whole that opens up to the audience the plethora of stories available to them. It’s a launching point of inspiration to others while at the same time the derivative of inspiration from the creator.

Impacting the journey

That enrichment has pushed me to examine how I use my words to tease the same outcome from my audience. In no way is it meant to be exact because the mediums themselves are different. But consider how you might travel from one destination to another: walk, ride, or fly? The journey’s result for each participant is still fundamentally the same. But the experiences, their points of view, their level of interactivity will be markedly different.

A creative can certainly be an expert at one method and make that journey exciting every time for the participant.

But what if a creative is experienced in more ways to execute that journey, such as mixing walking and flying to the destination? Those paths’ nuances begin to intersect and react, enhancing not just the creative’s vision but also enriching the participant’s journey to that destination.

That’s the impact of my toy photography hobby. I may never reach the level of some truly stellar artists wholly dedicated to their preferred medium. But I know that my creations will have a unique impact on the people who receive them.

Reflection.

Inspiration.

Wonder.

These are the results I strive for from my work—all of my work, both the ordinary and the extraordinary.

As creatives, we should strive for nothing less.