While building with LEGO is a wonderful and fulfilling hobby in itself, combining LEGO with photography can take the hobby to a whole new level. Some LEGO fans focus mostly on building, but they also take the time to take good pictures of their creations. Others approach LEGO more from the toy photography perspective, putting LEGO minifigures and models into interesting settings to compose unique images. We have highlighted the work of a number of great LEGO photographers in the past (see links at the end of this post), and today I thought to introduce you to another photographer I recently discovered, who goes by name brickexplorer on Instagram. 🙂
As you will see from the pictures here, brickexplorer has a great sense of combining LEGO creations with real world backgrounds. The lighting is particularly unique, and really brings the scenes to life. In addition, because the images are taken from the perspective and eye level of a minifigure, they are especially lifelike. Take a look at the clever usage of a translucent minifigure headpiece in the image below! Beautiful, isn’t it?
Brickexplorer has been taking pictures of minifigs at the beach, camping, driving, hiking, working, relaxing, and a host of other activities. Here, I will show you some of my favorites, and you can find the rest of the images at their gallery on Instagram.
There is a whole series of pictures, depicting friendly European towns with narrow streets basking in the morning light, minifigs enjoying the sunshine after some refreshing rain, and cozy evening settings.
Some of my other favorites are scenes taking place in the kitchen. So many great details in these images! And, again, the very effective lighting and carefully chosen minifig expressions really bring them to life!
The dramatic outdoors images are excellent too, especially the ones with rain and snow. But even when the outdoors are rough, there are always some lovely details to warm your heart.
Every good LEGO photographer has to have a series of cute LEGO Star Wars Stormies. Brickexplorer doesn’t disappoint in this regard either.
There are many-many more great pictures by brickexplorer, so if you like the ones shared here, make sure you check out their Instagram gallery.
What do you think? Do you take time to photograph your LEGO creations? And how do you like the pictures shared here? Are there any other LEGO photographers who’s work you really like? Feel free to share in the comment section below! 😉
And you might also like to check out the following related posts:
All of these are amazing, but that second picture with the translucent hair is inspired! Just discovered a favorite artist. Thanks!
Yeah, I really like that one too. 🙂
Very beautiful! I checked out their gallery and the winter and Christmas photos are especially lovely.
Those first pictures look like a French town. Dreamy and beautiful. I also really like the angle of the pictures. Is this person a professional photographer?
Not sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
LOL! That guy setting the kitchen on fire is great! His hair, his tongue sticking out, his wife shrieking behind him. Lego should hire this person for making cartoons and books! 😀
Good idea! I would buy a book like that! 😀
Seems like BrickExplorer isn’t above occasionally adding external props to his pictures. At least I don’t think that the bathing brush in the second image and the teddy bear in the thirteenth are actual Lego parts…
Toy photographers think differently than AFOLs. Their idea is usually to blend the real world with the world of toys. In this case, you will see the use natural elements like light, water, snow, etc., as well as different accessories. But they mostly stick with LEGO as the main feature. 🙂
Yeah, it does work well in context.
Looks great. As much as I like building Lego sets , it’s been hard for me to Create things from scratch. I think the things that I created ( that was worth keeping together ) are themes like LOTR/ Hobbit sets and a Jungle theme base. The Hobbit sets are Radagast home and Beorn house . TOTR set was my own version of Bilbo’s home ( Hobbit hole). I made it identical to the Lego set version( I wasn’t sure if I was able to get the actual set). As for the Jungle theme . I E- mail a picture of it to you a awhile ago . It’s basically some of the smaller jungle sets put all together and added more green foliage to my set idea.
That’s how building your own thing begins; you start to modify official sets, and then they gradually get more and more your own design. You are on the right path. 😉
The Hobbit set . Not TOTR. Oops !
SO beautiful!!!! Does the person share what kind of camera they use?
I haven’t seen them mention it on Instagram, but I didn’t look at all of the comments. If you are interested, you can always ask them directly. 🙂
Seems like Brickexplorer is Russian, judging from occasional comments on the Instagram feed… Might explain some of the fascination for snowy landscapes, as well.
(Or at least writing in a related Cyrillic-based, Slavic language.)
Hm… really? That’s interesting! I also learned that they are indeed professional toy photographers. 🙂
I routinely photograph in the course of my job. It is one of the hardest things to do! I am immensely and completely impressed. Amazing work! The lighting techniques are off the charts.