Photoygraphe

Sébastien is a graphic designer/community manager based in France, near Paris.

What led you into toy photography?

I am an only-child, so younger the action figures allowed me to live amazing adventures with them. This enthusiasm has become a real passion. I started to collect action figures when I was a teenager, with the ones of Spawn, from McFarlane, then with some Dragon Ball and nowadays, I collect a bit of everything.

I already used to take pictures from them just for fun but I saw that others did the same. I discovered amazing pictures took by passionate persons from all over the world and decided to officially take the leap in 2018 and join the great community.

What's your motivation?

As a child, I loved to create histories with my action figures and it is always the case, I just changed the way I give life to them.

I’m a huge fan of pop culture, toys, movies, photography : toyphotograpy is just a mix of all my passions.

The purpose is to give life to your imagination.

What's your gear?

I have a Nikon D1500 camera with a af-s nikkor 18-55mm lens, the same camera I use since I started, it allows me to take pictures from different angles and give me multiple choices of shooting, this is what I like about it.

What does a typical photo shooting look like?

I work generally inside my apartment, on my living room table.

During a shooting, I prepare my diorama myself — it can take a lot of time — the goal is to create the illusion of a real and big set with just a few items. Then, I try to find the perfect pose in order to create a sensation of movement and set the light to create an atmosphere.

I use just a few thing, one or two LED light strings of different colors, depending on the atmosphere wanted, and two Ulanzi spotlights — one with a yellow filter. Then, I accentuate on Photoshop the lighting and the colors in order to obtain a bright picture.

Any advice for a beginner?

First of all, I think you have to be passionate. If you want to try, there are a lot of websites such as exclumagazine.com or some accounts who share their BTS and will give you some tips and techniques useful to start.

Do not hesitate to look the work of others photographs, to explore different styles that can exist. You must practice, try, dare things, you will soon find your own style. It’s been more than 2 years now that I do that and I keep learning new things, it is very exciting.

Finally, art is very subjective, so do pictures that suits you and have fun, this is the best motivation.

Who is your favorite toy photographer at the moment, or the one who inspires you the most?

This is a hard question, I can’t choose only one toy photographer, they are so many to be talented and inspiring. I am very close to the French photographs community #ToyPhotoFrenchForce and invite everyone to have a look to their pictures.

But if I had to choose only one who inspire me these days, I choose Eyeofuatu. His work on colors and light is very impressive, I like the way he gives a very graphic impression to his work.

Finally, If you had to keep only one toy, which one would you choose?

If I had to choose, I will took 4 : the TMNT from NECA which are amazing. They remind me my childhood. It is always a pleasure to photograph them and I really like the idea to keep alive their adventure.

Cheers 🤘