Create better work by not giving a shit

How caring about what others think cripples you creatively

May 06, 2023

Excuse the language throughout this essay but I’m working off someone else’s phrasing that I happen to like.

I had a different topic in mind for this month's newsletter, but as I was editing the photo above, the two heads of the ogre reminded me of this comic:

I'd seen this shared so many times over the years I don't know the origin, but I think this perfectly sums up my mindset about toy photography on many levels. I’ll discuss two.

Shooting in public

I used to be very self-conscious about bringing my LEGO out in public to take photos. I thought that maybe people who saw me would think I was pathetic for still owning toys as a full-grown adult.

I’d go to the closest park and conceal myself as much as possible, setting up the smallest scenes behind large trees and in corners, then rushing to get a shot so I could pack it all up and get out of there ASAP.

Those photos weren’t great— the experience wasn’t either— which just reinforced my bias that taking photos indoors was better suited to my “style”.

After a few more nerve-racking attempts to shoot outside, I began to realize that most people didn’t give a shit about what I was doing. Passersby were just passing by, and any onlookers were probably just curious if I was taking a dump by the tree since I was squatting and looking embarrassed.

I gotta admit I must have looked really suspicious.

These days, I not only bring minifigs out, but I take larger models with me in a big IKEA bag— and there’s nothing more conspicuous than that.

I'll even go to the most crowded areas, park my butt on the ground for a good chunk of time, and shoot at my leisure.

I shot this photo in front of the biggest attraction in Mallorca, the Cathedral, at the height of the tourist season:

A typical horse carriage in Mallorca near the Cathedral

On the promenade behind me that day were hundreds of people strolling through the park. A literal busload of British tourists stood inches away, listening to their tour operator talk about the architecture and history of the Cathedral. I learned a lot! Especially when the next bus arrived and I heard the same script.

If you're anxious just reading that, I can assure you that none of these people were watching me; they were taking in the beauty of that building and the scenery, of course. They probably only cared that I might have taken up a spot for their Instagram photo, if anything.

(I did get a few people walk up to me throughout the day to ask about the LEGO horse carriage, only to be deflated when I said I made it myself and it wasn’t a set you could buy as a souvenir anywhere.)

Feeling embarrassed about taking photos of toys in public is a pretty normal experience for any toy photographer.

Often we hear that self-confidence is the key to beating the nerves but I think that ironically, it’s humility you need to embrace in order to get out there and free yourself creatively.

Nobody gives a shit about what you’re doing so don’t use that as an excuse anymore. We’re all just NPCs in each other’s lives.

If you care too much about all this imagined attention, you’ll only end up confining yourself to shooting minifigs behind trees for a lot longer than you’d like.

Keeping my social media picture-perfect

Nobody gives a shit about what your profile looks like.

Lol ok, that's evident to most of us today but back when I started LEGO photography, Instagram was the home of the lifestyle influencer and every week there was an article about creating cohesive, aesthetic profiles or “hacking” landscape photos into a square format.

Not that I ever went so far as to color-coordinate my photos, but I definitely used to treat my social media accounts as if they were portfolios of my best work.

I know one person who even composed their landscape shots so that when Instagram cropped them for the profile grid, their photos would still look good as squares. Wow, next level. I never even looked at their profile before.

It took me years before I started sharing more of the rough photos where I'm still learning something rather than only the best, polished photos. I let my personality come out more too and that’s when I started connecting more with people.

Being picture-perfect for everyone else only resulted in me having a tiny body of work to present what I was about, which consequently didn’t say anything about me at all. The worst part about that approach is that I deleted beginner photos that I was embarrassed by just to keep my profile nice and up-to-date with my current level.

What a mistake that was because I robbed myself of being able to look back and see my progress at that time. And let me tell you, seeing how far you’ve come is a huge reward in and of itself.

I'm much more liberal about what I share now, posting my “nearly theres” and “good enoughs” along with photos I spent considerable effort on. I have a bigger body of work and can track my progress a lot better.

And creating all these photos keeps my eyes on my own paper— I don’t compare against anyone else except my former self.

So if you're still curating your profile to such high standards, relax a bit because nobody gives a shit.

In short

Don’t try to be number 1. Be number 2: Yay, nobody gives a shit!

Whether that’s being too embarrassed to go outside with your toys or feeling like you have to show your best work all the time, caring too much about what other people think usually means compromising your own creativity.

Thank you for reading Take Better Toy Photos. This post is public so feel free to share it.

And now…

Toy Photography Tips

A couple of months ago, I tried to take a cool photo of a Mongolian falconer on his horse atop a peak against a blue sky, but that turned out terrible and was harder than I thought. For one thing, there were more tree leaves than sky in my photo and it was all bokeh LOL.

While I researched how I'd do a better shot next time, I realized that there wasn’t a lot of LEGO minifig photography with sky in it at all. It’s actually pretty rare.

Most minifigure photos shot outdoors typically have a lot of ground in them and with the subject below the horizon line. (Unless they’re “flying” in the air with fishing line or some other support, but that's not the concept I'm talking about here.)

One factor, of course, is the scale of the subject. It's much easier to shoot a larger model on the ground and have it break the horizon than it is a minifig.

The other factor is location. You need a relatively unobstructed view of the sky.

After lots of experimenting outdoors at the edge of the park, by the highway, and on the footbridge, I ended up with this:

Ok, that’s not bad, right? Blue skies! But here’s how I got it:

Shot on the ledge outside my home office on the top floor

A bit of cheat, right? And not exactly how I imagined this photoshoot would go. I just couldn't get a lot of sky without some antenna, tree branch, or lamppost in the shot anywhere.

Despite being 3 stories up, I still had to shoot at such a low angle because I wasn’t high enough for this area, nor was I dumb enough to climb out on the ledge for a better position. (Imagine the headlines if anything bad happened to me. If I didn’t die of injuries, I’d surely die of embarrassment.)

Even using the trick where you angle a mirror behind the subject to reflect the sky above wouldn’t work anywhere around me because it would just catch more of the other buildings, powerlines, and trees.

Anyway, since I felt unfulfilled with that photo, I set out to get one for real. That meant a change of location.

So the next time we headed to the beach, I was ready with my camera and some minifigs.

I knew I had to be lower than the subject so I scouted the rocky area for a tide pool or hole I could fit inside. I crouched inside one of the larger tide pools and placed the minifigure on the ridge, which allowed me to get that lower angle I needed.

My 30mm macro let me get close while still getting a good amount of the environment, and I stopped down to f/14 so the clouds could still be legible.

It’s a simple photo but I’m pretty happy with it because I met all my objectives for it:

get blue skies
get a deeper depth of field
break the horizon line with a minifig on the ground (no “flying”)

For contrast, here’s a more typical minifig photo where the subject doesn’t break the horizon:

I mean, it’s fine. There’s more of the water to give the photo context. Ideally, I'd have both water and sky but I'll save that challenge for another day.

But having the sky visible in a ground-level shot definitely makes more of an impact. It’s more lifelike and dramatic.

This is probably why this photo submitted by toy.story.yana to a phone photography contest I co-hosted some time ago stuck in my mind:

Clear blue skies, minifig breaking the horizon, legible background? Check, check, and check.

Here's another one with those characteristics by legoanywhere:

It’s more obvious in this photo that elevating the minifig is important for getting it over the horizon.

In toy.story.yana’s photo, the ground where she had her subject was just slightly higher than the sidewalk she was on. In mine, I was in a recessed spot.

If you live in an urban area, you could try this method by taskera_photography which is similar to how I shot the Mongolian falconer at home:

Seeing how scarce these skyscapes with minifigs are was a bit of an eye-opener for me.

I'm going to try to fill that void in the next few months and I'll challenge you to do the same. It'll be a welcome break from the Insta Repeat my feed has become.

The ingredients again are: