There’s something wonderfully melancholic about gazing out a train window watching the rivulets of rain spill across the glass. That is unless you’re on your way to the 2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup!

Last Saturday, bookended by Friday’s sunny 27˚c and Sunday’s sunny 18˚c, I boarded the train for Melbourne. My phone’s weather app mocking me with the chance of rain ranging from 70 – 100% for the next 4 hours. The train trip was spent jumping between messages from Tony and Janan and frantically rechecking the weather app.

Despite endless manic refreshing, the weather app didn’t miraculously revise its prophecy of a damp start to the meetup. But we had an ace up our sleeve. We changed our route to begin undercover at Melbourne’s Federation Square and save the iconic graffiti covered Hosier Lane for the weather to clear. TAKE THAT MELBOURNE RAIN! Sorry for yelling.

Stop 1 – Federation Square

With the rain persisting, bags of toys and camera gear were left under the eaves of Federation Square and toy photographers braved the damp searching out puddles.

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup – Puddles and soggy cardboard

Stop 2 – Hosier Lane

With the rain subsiding, we crossed Flinders Street and entered Melbourne’s iconic Hosier Lane. Engulfed by these graffiti covered walls collaborations began, discussions ensued, and ideas, tips and tricks were disclosed. As the rain abated and the weather warmed, so did the meetup.

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup: Hosier Lane (image credit: @lego_n_things)

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup: Hosier Lane (image credit: @lego_n_things)

Stop 3 – Birrarung Marr Artplay Playground

Time to replenish, eat, chat, photograph and collaborate some more.

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup: Lume Cube and Atmosphere Aerosol shenanigans (image credit: @lego_n_things)

Stop 4 – the Yarra foreshore

We meandered our way all the Yarra River towards our post-meetup location. some meandered more than others. I’m looking at you @nivrana!

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup (photo credit: @nivrana)

Stop 5 – Pilgrim Bar

An obligatory post-meetup beer, a feed, group photos (both plastic and flesh), BTS winners announced and wonderful discussions. A fitting way to end the day. Hey, that rhymes!

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

The 2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup plastic gang!

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

The 2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup flesh gang! (image credit: @tonytulloch_tp)

Winners

Congratulations to Claire and David for winning the #MelToyPhotoMeetup2018_BTS challenge.

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup

2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup: #MelToyPhotoMeetup2018 (image credit: @lego_n_things)

Both your photos of the two children who jumped in to help with your setup, and take their own photos, were amazing, spreading the Toy Photographers word, and enlisting future recruits! Plus, we couldn’t send only one of you away with a prize. That would’ve been an awkward train trip home!

More Winners To Come

Janan, Tony and I will be picking our favourite photo from the day utilising the contents of the LEGO Polybags we handed out, using the #MelToyPhotoMeetup2018_LEGO hashtag. We’ll also select the ‘photo of the day’ using the #MelToyPhotoMeetup2018 hashtag. We’ll do that this weekend and we’ll announce the winners in next week’s blog post.

Cheers

Thank you to everyone who turned up on Saturday, despite the soggy start. Thank you LEGO for providing giveaways and prizes for the day. Thanks also to @krash_override for providing some of your wonderful #krashes_kustoms as prizes. And thank you to Tony and Janan for helping organise the 2018 Melbourne Toy Photographers Meetup.

Bring on the #MelToyPhotoMeetup2019!!

– Brett

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