Suppaduppa

David is a Toy Photographer living in Barcelona. He owns a VFX studio in Barcelona with his partner and they mostly work for TV, commercials and movies. Married and with three kids who love toys too!

What led you into toy photography?

I always collected toys but it was 10 years ago when I was trying to make my own comic books that I found a method by Paolo Rivera — a Marvel Comics artist — to photograph action figures in order to have a reference for drawing my panels. I left drawing for a while but I realized I had dozens of pictures of action figures.

Started posting them with funny captions in my personal facebook page and they became quite succesful among my friends so later came flickr, facebook pages, instagram ... and until today I think there hasn't been a week I haven't shot a toy.

What's your motivation?

My motivations depend on many things but my main aim is to make funny things, funny situations that can make you smile when you run through your social media feed. I like action poses and artistic pictures too but my favorites are when they are jokes like that comic strips you can finds in the newspapers.

What's your gear?

My gear today is a Sony A7 with a 90mm 2,8 combined with a manual Canon 50mm 1,2. I use lumecubes and Amaran Aputure for lighting and whatever I can find at home or at the studio. Sometimes the led light of your phone can save the day!

What does a typical photo shooting look like?

Wires, I use lots of wires to make toys being suspended in the air. I like when things are moving in the picture and wires help a lot building dynamic scenes. Later I remove them in Photoshop.

I print things too, like comicbooks or painted paper to make a room, for example.

Any advice for a beginner?

Have fun and work. Sometimes you are not inspired but just take a figure and the camera — or the phone — and make some photos. Something will happen and most of the times you will end up with something. But if you let the lack of inspiration or mood make you stay in the couch you will leave the hobby sooner or later.

And don't be afraid of photo editing softwares like Photoshop, they are easy and will make your pics better always. You can find hundreds of tutorials in youtube and learn in a few days a lot of things!

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

My favorite has always been Avanaut. 10 years ago he made all the things the rest of us are discovering right now. I like a lot of new photographers like noserain, plasticaction or Felix Hernandez too, I always enjoy their feeds.

One of my favorites too is not that famous but I love everything he does, Cantinadanny.

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

If I had to keep only one toy it would be my Batman of the Kenner Super Powers line (1984). My alltime favorite.

Cheers 🤘