Anatomy Of An Action Figure Photo
I’m going to be writing about the process (behind the scenes) of some of my toy photography and I’m going to try to do it in real time.
I’m working on several photos at once, building sets, acquiring props, backgrounds, dioramas, etc.
But it all starts with an idea and a blank slate.
Unlike a lot of photography, action figure photography isn’t in any way reactionary.
When I started photographing objects as a teenager, I would simply point my camera at things I saw developing in front of me. If I saw a cool car, I photographed it. If a bird flew by (I tried) to photograph it.
It was all reactionary. Whatever happened, I photographed. That’s a completely valid way to approach photography, especially if you’re a beginner.
But as I spent decade after decade in photography I became more contemplative.
And in writing this article it has dawned on me why I have become so instantly addicted to action figure photography. The reason is it’s 100% deliberate. You don’t just walk by a scene containing several Star Wars characters doing battle with Marvel superheroes. You have to make that up in your head and then decide how to illustrate it.
I am going to try to build a scene based on a Batman comic book series, but to mix it up, I’m going to swap Star Wars characters for Batman. Yes it’s twisted. And yes it’s EXACTLY the kind of thing a five-year-old would do. And that means it’s EXACTLY the right track for me :) It’s fun and that is supposed to be at the heart of every action figure image.
To build this shot:
I started with an Impact Photo Pro LED Booth 400 I got from B&H. It helps contain stray light and offers a reflective surface that I can use or scrim and makes a perfect mini studio for action figure photography.
I used an old sawhorse I had in the garage and put some cardboard on it to make a table. It’s not level and won’t work as a long term solution but I have a real table on order that will fit perfectly. This will have to do for now.
I added some black velvet I bought on Amazon and had laying around in my existing studio and covered the home made table with it.
From there I have a blank slate on which to create.
I am going to slowly build a series of shots that illustrate the comic book — one scene at a time. They may or may not end up going together. But since toy photography is really just play time for grown-ups, the end product isn’t as important as the experiment. I am merely experimenting as I consciously try to re-create the scenes I saw in the comic.
For my first scene, I grabbed part of the Extreme-Sets.com Sewer 3.0 series and used that as my foundational wall. Then I added my action figure.
I picked Grand Admiral Thrawn, born originally as Kivu’raw’nuru but later as Mitth’raw’nuruodo in his military career or more commonly known as Thrawn of the House of Nuruodo of the Mitth Family, is a major antagonist in the epic space opera franchise Star Wars.
He is notable for appearing as the eponymous character in the Thrawn trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn. Thrawn is an imperial military leader and member of the Chiss race who returns from the unknown and leads the remnants of the scattered Galactic Empire in a campaign against the New Republic.
Now that you know who, it’s time to discuss the what.
Thrawn is a bad guy. At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not he was a good choice to replace Batman in this scene but then I remembered, to some — and at various times during his life, Batman was also seen as a bad guy. Good enough for me.
The next step was to consider the lighting. The whole point of this first shot is to establish a feeling of foreboding.
As is often the case with Batman photos, movies, comics, etc., the real important bit of light craft is more about the shadows than the light.
Light illuminates, and shadows define.
In this case, where I am swapping a Star Wars character for Batman, I’ll do the same. I decided that a very high contrast scene, showing Thrawn in bright light casting a shadow on a dark background would help tell the story.
I also decided (even before I made the photo) that I was going to convert this image to black and white.
The reason for this was three-fold.
First, some of the earliest series of comic books I saw as a kid were printed in black and white and that always made an impression on me later when comics were readily and expectedly in color.
Second, I just thought black and white added to the whole foreboding approach I want to take.
Third, as a member of the Chiss, Thrawn has striking blue skin and red eyes. I thought color would overpower this particular scene so I went Black and White in Luminar. NOTE: I do use Photoshop but I alsouse Luminar for my catalog and some special presets I built using the software. Also by way of disclaimer — I used to be President of Skylum Software; the makers of Luminar but I have absolutely no connection to the company now other than I still use their products.
My next decision was related to posing. I didn’t want to just stand the character up the way he comes in the box. I wanted a more dynamic or action pose. So my story is he’s here ranting and raving about the rebels. I could have put the pistol in the hand above his head, but as a personal choice I am downplaying the weapons aspect of my characters due to the various mass shootings happening in my country. I am making a slight change in that he still has the weapon, he’s not just waving it around. This decision won’t go far enough for some and too far for others. But you can’t please everyone nor should you try. I am doing this for my own enjoyment and my personal comfort level is to keep the weapon down for now. If I do depict a combat scene, the weapons will come into play and that is more natural in my mind. Call me “woke” if you want to because I am sensitive to this issue. It won’t bother me in the least.
The last thing I had to place was the light. While I have plenty of studio grade LED lights — some with very large fixtures, that kind of light is too big and too much for such a small scene like this one, especially when I want the scene to be low-key. There may be times when I bring those lights out for my action figure photography but I have a whole slew of very small, very manageable LED lights I use (traditionally with my iPhone) and that style of light is perfect for this type of photography.
Since I wanted a tall, powerful shadow but I wanted the light to be bright on the foreground and wanted something with a round shape for soft, natural falloff, I decided to use the Profoto C1 Plus for this image.
I placed it directly in front of the action figure and just placed it on the table at the same height as his feet. I gave the light enough power to create the shadow and then purposefully under-exposed the image to keep the dark, creepy mood and also to keep the light hitting Grand Admiral Thrawn from becoming too specular.
I used my Sony A7C for this image paired with the Tamron 28–75mm F/2.8 Di III VXD G2.
ISO was set to 50, Aperture to f/3.2. The lens was racked almost all the way out to 73mm and my exposure was 1/13th of a second. I mounted the camera to a Platypod Platyball and Oben tripod to make sure I got a steady shot.
The accompanying image is the result. All I did to this image was convert to B&W using a Luminar preset I built and then using a vignette to darken the frame. I haven’t done any other post work to this yet to refine it but it looks pretty good right out of camera.
I’ll continue to write more about this project as it goes.
Remember — toys are joy.
