2022 PHOTO CONTEST UPDATE!

Here's some feedback on a few of the entries from Toyshooter.

Please note: the feedback does not indicate any judgement on placement in the contest, but is meant for fans to learn from and use to their benefit.

And remember - if you want to learn more about toy photography, check out Toyshooter's GGLTD Photo Contest advice article and his photography course!

TOY SHOOTER: This is a great setup - the positioning here with the tree behind looks convincing, and I like the mood throughout.

I think this would benefit from a couple more light sources on the subject.

First thing I would try is a warm table lamp placed maybe 100cm behind and to the left of the subject (so not visible in shot), just to draw a rim of light around him and create a little more separation between foreground and background. That bright light in the trees (keep it) will then seem like it's the source of this rim light.

Second thing I would add is some kind of additional, low power light on the front of the subject itself, to mix with the green (LED?) light source you're using in front.

You've got a great mood going on with that green light but the problem with using colored light sources is they can remove a lot of dimension and detail from subjects. Getting a cool white light source angled in from front left or above will bring out some more detail with the piece but maintain the moody green. Trick is not to use too much - a simple way to control this is to play with backing the light away to reduce its brightness. You could even try using your phone torch light for this and playing with different angles (I've actually done this with an iPhone in at least a couple of Gentle Giant's product shots).

TOY SHOOTER: This has the right ingredients for a great shot, there's a few things that need work.

It's tricky to make projected backgrounds work, and you've selected a good one perspective wise but there are noticeable quality issues with the background - JPEG compression artifacts are visible and contrast badly with your sharper subjects in front. If a higher quality picture isn't available, one way to fix this is to blur the background, or better yet shoot with a wider aperture to blur the background in camera to obscure the issues (be careful to maintain focus on the two subjects with this approach though).

Second problem with the background here is "matching" the lighting you've used on your subjects - the background is heavily tinted blue, but your lighting is a warm color temperature. You could try using different lighting to make the subjects match, however I'd suggest trying to warm the background image using some image editing software if that's an option.

With the lighting color matched, next thing to work on is the light direction itself, or "motivated lighting". Looks like you've lit both pieces from underneath which gives an eerie feel appropriate for Jabba's palace, but work on this to get light coverage on both Boba's helmet/face and Leia's body.

There's a big ceiling light in that image at the back - that would create a rim of light around both Boba and Leia, which you could easily emulate with a small light held just out of shot at the top of the screen - this would really unify both characters with the background.

Final piece of advice here is storytelling - Boba looks like he's facing Leia, but Leia is turned away from him and staring out of shot - this creates confusion for the viewer - what is the relationship between these two characters in the shot? With Leia repositioned to look directly at Fett, the picture will make more sense.

TOY SHOOTER: This is nice, couple of suggestions to kick it up a notch.

First try closing down your aperture a stop or 2 to get that ball in his hand in focus along with his face. It looks like the focus point is slightly away from his face and a little in front where his lower hand is - switch to manual focus with focus assist if you can to fix this.

That area in focus by his hand looks slightly brighter than his face to my eyes (might just be the focus issue), spend some time with the lighting here to ensure his face pops out the most - something to darken the light on his body (e.g. diffusion material) should be all that's needed.

With my earlier suggestion to close down the aperture, that will lessen that beautiful bokeh effect you've got on the console light effects in the background. You can compensate for that by moving Grogu and your camera further away from the background (thus may need to increase the background size assuming it's on a screen), or moving your camera very slightly closer to Grogu without going beyond the minimum focus distance of your lens. The second suggestion will make getting the ball in focus even harder though.

Finally with framing just pan right a little so his ear doesn't hit the edge of the shot.

To see even more awesome entries make sure to take a look at Gentle Giant Ltd.'s Instagram feed.

To see how you can enter the Photo Contest, check out the rules and prizes here!

And have fun!