If you've recently wrapped watching the 80s throwback "Stranger Things" on Netflix, you are probably filled with plenty of nostalgia by this point. Why not dive a bit farther back to a galaxy far, far away in some behind the scenes toy photography action? Freelance Photographer Steven Price is reliving his childhood love in these surrealistic scenes using toys usually meant for kids. Then again, we are all kids at heart.
Steven finds that the key to toy photography is movement. Bringing to life characters meant to stay still is important to show action and motion. The classic scene being reproduced here is the Luke Skywalker vs the Rancor beast with a desert backdrop. In the BTS shots below, you can see Steven's setup in the desert scene was fairly simple, with one person just off camera to slightly kick dirt into frame to create the flow of a sandstorm.
Another factor to create motion in the shot was the cloak throw and the epic lightsaber jump. For this, Steven did have more help as he connected fishing wire to the ends to form the organic movement of the pieces.
As a bonus, here are a few more shots from his toy photography account:
Steven is far one of my favorite guys to follow when it comes to toy photography, as he has a true passion for the craft and brings so much life and nostalgia to my daily inspiration. He doesn't only stick to Star Wars; this was simply one concept he executed perfectly for his Instagram page. You can find more of Steven's work at his main page and all of his toy photography work at his second account here.
I love this kind of stuff. I'm a child.
Steven is a friend of mine in town and I have been wanting to feature his stuff for awhile. It was super fun checking out the BTS shots of how he did the Star Wars stuff. Hope to make a vlog on a process shot soon too.
I'm currently working on a Rancor image as well! This is fun to see! Love working with toys for making scenes!
I've been playing around with toys for years now. I don't have a lot of technical skill as a photographer, but I really like the idea of implying movement and emotion with my Barbie/Ken/GI Joe dolls. I've been making what I call toytoons, as in cartoons using toys. I'll want to follow Steven for sure. I've been using webpress to publish my awkward experiments thus far.
Oooh, must check out his stuff. I take photos of my ball-jointed dolls, so I'm sure I can get some inspiration from his work.