Star Wars Themed Photo Shoot BTS
Since I’ve taken up toy photography I try to think like a movie director. Because I am new at this, sometimes I pull it off and sometimes I don’t.
My current measuring stick for success in a toy photo is simple. Did the final image match what I saw in my mind’s eye before I prepared the shoot? If so, I am happy.
Here, I am using Bushido Mandalorian (Imagine if Star Wars had taken place in Japan…) and he’s decided to sneak aboard an Imperial transport ship.
He thinks the ship is populated strictly by droids but as he’s roaming the spacecraft he runs into a very much alive, human stormtrooper. And it’s not just any stormtrooper. It’s a commander.
I had commissioned some 3D printed parts that look like a spaceship wall on any Imperial craft. I used spray paint (good old model spray paint) flat black to turn them from the 3D printed gray to black. I found some Machinist 3–2–1 Blocks and used them to simulate the deck that the Mandalorian was standing on.
I also had a wall that I built for a spaceship diorama and it’s rather large so I decided to use it to simulate the floor for the stormtrooper. I then realized that putting all this together so that I could photograph it in a traditional way with my camera mounted to a tripod and shooting level with the floor was going to require a lot of rigging.
One of the reasons I’m kind of creative is that I’m lazy. I didn’t want to go through all that so I simply decided to try it as a lay-flat scene and it worked.
I have a 20 year old light table (some call it a light box) that I used to use to sort Kodachrome slides and it still works good as new. I put it on my studio table and layed out all the parts on it so there’d be some light shining through the “space walls.”
I wanted to simulate Mando sneaking around on the deck below the trooper, so I put the blocks down first and then put him on the blocks and posed him so he’s looking up.
I placed the two space walls I had 3D printed (I decided I wished I had three and may do this shoot again when I can get a third one for more vertical space in the shot) and I stacked them one above the other.
I placed the “floor” which is the wall from my other diorama on its side and held it in place with one of my trusty Platypod Ultras mounted to Platypod Elbow and Platypod Mini Super Clamp. This held the “floor” in place and left me free. to pose the trooper on the floor above Mando.
I posed the trooper so he’s looking in the general direction of Mando as if he heard something but I decided not to overtly have him looking down. This is the pre-discovery portion of the story. The trooper thinks he hears something so he looks in the general direction of the Mandalorian but not right at him.
The next thing I needed to do is scrim off the portions of the light box that were showing light so as not to cause lens flare and to make it easier in post. I used two simple folding bounce cards that are white on one side black on the other for this task.
Next came lighting. While the light box provided the light from below, I needed to at least match that amount of light from above or the characters would have been in silhouette (which I considered might be cool but will leave for another day.)
I used my Genaray 18" Half Moon LED light mounted to a C-Stand and placed directly above the scene but pointed up at the ceiling to create what I always call my “world light.” It emulates a large light source that provides all the ambient light for the scene.
I used two more Platypods, each with a Platypod Elbow holding a Lume Cube Panel Pro that had diffusers and barn doors on them. These lights are amazing and what I like about them is that you don’t need to gel them. You can simply dial in any color you want.
I wanted an ominous red glow to the scene as opposed to bright, antiseptic, perfect white light. White light would have been a valid choice but I just saw it in my mind as red so I lit it that way.
In the BTS photo I took one image with just the Lume Cube lights to show what their job was. (It also looks kind of cool just like this but again — not what I envisioned so onward I went.) Then I turned on the light box to create the backlight. Then I turned on the Half Moon to create the world light and adjusted it to a fairly low power so that I could have just enough light to show some detail on the characters but not so much that it overpowered the red light coming from the side and the LED panel lights.
I finished this off in post using Luminar AI (that is my cataloging software — I am not using Lightroom. Luminar is faster.) Then I pulled it into Photoshop to clean up the background and crop (making everything black that wasn’t part of the scene.) Next I used Boris FX Optics 2022 for some glow and then Topaz Photo AI to do the final finishing.
CONCLUSION
I consider the photo a success because it came out exactly as I envisioned it in my mind’s eye before I started working on the picture. You may have made different choices and that’s cool too.
Remember — this started as a blank canvas. I got up one morning and set out to tell a story with one photo and built the set, staged the characters, set the lighting, made the photograph and post-processed it.
For me, the fun of all this is being in control. When I was a wildlife photographer I had NO control. I depended on nature and my subjects to make each shot. I couldn’t tell the sun where to be in the sky; or the wind which direction to blow; or the bird which way to fly. I just had to react.
That took a different skill set and one that I am comfortable with.
Now I have to develop a new skill set and it’s stretching my creative muscles which is a good thing.
Even if you don’t like the image I felt like the photographers in my audience might like to see how I did this. Maybe it will spur ideas for some of you. To the StarWars fans in my audience, hopefully you like the story I told with just one image.
For me it’s all play.
For a list of my toy photo gear and props go to:
bit.ly/toyphotogear
Remember, toys are joy.
