6 minute read
Photographer Spotlights: Astrid Heyland
People
Different figures and scales make for a conflict.
Photographer Spotlight: Astrid Heyland
Astrid Heyland is a German photographer that has been photographing toys for about five years. She started with tiny 1:87 figures from model railroads. Now, LEGO minifigures are her heroes. In fact, some of her best ideas come when Astrid picks up a minifigure in her hand and she brainstorms a suitable story for the figure. Astrid loves taking photos outdoors, but she builds her picture ideas indoors beforehand, in her small home studio. She really enjoys taking the time for the creative process. There is an art to coordinating colors, figures, and accessories. Much of the time she leaves the scene on her photo table for a while, and looks at it every now and then to see if she wants to change anything. When she feels the scene is ready, she packs it into a small can (sometimes there are many cans!). Astrid needs at least 1-2 hours of sunlight for photography. When the weather cooperates, she looks for a suitable place to set up. She loves to be outside looking for the best place, background, and angle for her protagonists.
Above: The sketch for an image, showing composition and elements. In this case, color notations are noted. Right: The final image.
Accessories help to develop and define the story further, but sometimes she will be inspired by another subject, such as lavender (seen in the photo). From that inspiration, Astrid’s creative process begins with a sketch. Writing down ideas helps to guide her in set building and creative decision making. Of course, the final proof is when she looks at the scene through the camera’s viewfinder. Astrid’s three most useful tools for toy photography are wire, a battery-operated hot glue gun, and clamps. With these utensils, she can put her figures into any position she desires. Another critical tool is a large folded plastic bag. The bag allows her to put everything on any surface without anything (including herself!) getting wet or dirty. The camera Astrid uses is a Sony A7RIII full-frame camera, high-end macro lenses (100mm, 70mm, 50mm lens) and mostly with a tripod. She loves her camera because it’s light and has focus peaking (a method of focusing using high contrast areas of an image to define edges and sharpen focus). If she wants to achieve a special look, she uses her Lensbaby Composer Pro II with the Sweet 50 or Edge 50, lenses that can turn to warp the focus of an image. Once the image is taken, she edits her photos in Adobe Lightroom. There she sets the brightness, contrast, image selection, color effects, and much more. By the time she has taken the image, Astrid has already considered whether the image should appear warm or cool and which color tones should dominate. When editing, she intensifies these effects. Sometimes she only brightens certain areas in the picture, such as the face or a strong shadow. If there are unwanted elements, such as a wire or some other figure support, she removes them in Adobe Photoshop. Astrid loves photographing LEGO minfigures. She treasures some characters because they remind her of her childhood—the Disney character minifigures, for example. On the other hand, she especially loves the beautifully printed torsos and legs from the Legends of China Ninjago, and Vidiyo. There are endless possibilities to combine legs, torso, heads, and hairpieces again and again to create new figures. Animals are another highlight. They appear in all LEGO themes and always add something special to her little stories. She really enjoys building sets from the Architectural theme as well as Ninjago. Sets that she has built include the Old Fishing Store and the Pirates of the Barracuda Bay. Astrid is fascinated by how these small bricks are used to create such different buildings. However, she does have an issue with the bricks—the lines and studs seen in completed models. This pet peeve is why she only uses her buildings as a blurred background element and always covers studs with tiles. 5
People
The entrance to Moria, from the Lord of the Rings.
Photographer Spotlight: Nathan Smith
Nathan Smith started his toy photography in 2019 with the intent of doing a LEGO fantasy comic. After spending months on the build and the subsequent pictures, he realized that it would be an impossible feat to match his vision. Undaunted by this, he started focusing on individual photographs in April 2020. Inspiration for his photography comes from fantasy illustrations and movies. Nathan learns a lot by studying composition in a variety of mediums and how certain shots are lit and composed in movies. He typically does two types of images that have their own creative flow: movie scene recreations and original compositions. For scene recreations, the process is more about working backwards and deconstructing where everything would be positioned and how the Director of Photography lit the characters and environment. Nathan does this by setting up the camera with the focal length he thinks would be needed to recreate the shot, then he uses temporary LEGO set pieces to try to get the right distance and relative scale down. From there, he builds the scene in more detail. When he is ready, Nathan starts doing lighting tests. For original images, Nathan typically starts with thumbnail sketches—nothing too fancy, but he tries to work out composition, main and second8 ary light sources, and other factors. Having a very specific vision of the final image is an important step because simply building a
good LEGO MOC does not necessarily translate into a good photograph. After sketches, he follows the same build process as before, just using his sketches as a guide instead of an existing picture. Nathan is not very particular about his equipment, but he has experimented a lot with different light sources and DIY diffusion methods. For example, cheap $5 LED flashlights with a harsh beam of light are perfect for mimicking sunlight or studio spotlights, compared to more expensive “professional” light sources. For lenses, he uses a Canon 12-22mm zoom lens primarily to get his different wide-angle shots, but sometimes uses a higher mm prime lens for unique scenarios. Even with a background in 3D animation and digital painting, Nathan tries not to overly rely on post effects, as that takes a lot of the fun away for him personally. Outside of a few unique cases, his post-production workflow is fairly standard. Typically, he takes the base image through color correction in Camera Raw. Then, if he needs to do any additional work with blending layers, enhancing the atmosphere, masking, or painting out blemishes, Photoshop is used. Nathan is an indoor photographer, usually treating his setups like little movie sets on a sound stage—arranging props and using very controlled lighting. When photographing, his essential lights include LED flashlights, LED panels, diffusion materials, and small 3mm LEDs for practical lighting effects like the glow from a candle. For images with a visible sky in the background, he uses a 4K television as part of the set. One of his favorite tricks is using face misters, steamers, or atmosphere sprays to get the depth or atmosphere he wants in his photos.
Arwen and Aragorn.
Some of the modular buildings in John’s layout.
A look at part of the lower level.
