I’m counting 2024 as a personal win, toy photography-wise.  It was an uber-busy, chaotic year. Most of my free time during the first half of 2024 was spent selling my house, moving cross-country, and dealing with all the fun stuff (not!) that accompanies those behemoth tasks.  Looking back at my 2024 photos, I surprisingly managed to find time to create a decent number of fun images.  Here are a few of my favorite toy photos from 2024.

Snowy Day

In January 2024, I was in the frozen Yukon Territory on a photography workshop chasing auroras and snowy landscapes. It was a great week, but the weather was brutal; temperatures as low as -50 degrees F quickly drained any motivation to spend extra time outdoors.  So, my toys stayed packed away until the final day, when I was determined to take at least one toy photo. While the rest of the group was photographing a frozen lake, I found a quiet spot in the woods nearby and created this image. Seeing Olaf’s joy at being out there in that frozen world with his little sled makes me smile every time I see it.

Slot Canyon Pod Racer

One of the best parts about living in Utah is having so many incredible places to explore. I spent a summer weekend camping at one of my favorite state parks, with a day hike through an amazing nearby slot canyon. Shortly before the trip, I came up with an idea to do a fun “mashup” pod racer scene.  All I needed was a microfighter-scale pod racer and a minifig crazy enough to fly it through the narrow-walled canyon. I built the pod racer using this plan from Rebrickable, modified for the parts I had on hand and to make it stable enough to photograph in the wild. Animal was the perfect choice for pilot! 

This was a super fun image to create, and I admit I did a little dance of joy when I saw the composition in-camera. I spent quite a bit of time post-processing to combine focus-stacked images, remove supports, and create the motion blur, but the result is easily one of my favorite toy photos for 2024.  And I’m happy to report that both Animal and the pod racer survived their canyon run intact!

Oquirrh Mountains Sunset

I was excited to discover that I created enough images in 2024 to complete the Toyphotographers MeWe Bingo Challenge. The inspiring work of Tom Milton sparked my idea for the “In the style of …” bingo prompt. There is a trail near my house leading to an expansive overlook of the Cedar Valley and Oquirrh Mountains.  I knew there were many potential places to create a scene that would work for the prompt.

When I hiked out one late afternoon to photograph the scene, I didn’t intend to create a sunset photo.  But I spent too much time looking for the “perfect” spot – an appropriately Link-sized rock outcrop that was elevated enough to clearly see the valley below. And before I knew it, it was sunset. The resulting image is so much more than I had envisioned, mainly because the sun rays, lens flare, and rim lighting were really all just serendipitous. 

Looking Ahead

Toy photography kept me sane and grounded this year more than ever before. Now that I’m all settled in and (mostly) unpacked, I’m really looking forward to an adventurous and creative 2025.