LEGO - LEGO In Focus: Explore the Miniature World of LEGO® Photography

We know that taking LEGO bricks outdoors can help create amazing stories and fun play experiences. Please be aware that exposing LEGO bricks to the natural elements, such as sun, sand, and sea, can affect their clutch power and appearance. Remember to bring them back indoors once youve finished playing and creating!

Thank you to the team of people who supported this book and helped bring it to publication: the photographers at BrickCentral and Stuck in Plastic, Anna Bitanga, Boris Vanrillaer, Heidi K. Jensen, Paul Hansford, Lydia Barram, Martin Leighton Lindhardt, Nina Koopmann, Tormod Askildsen, Mette Frkjr Hansen, Pelle Bjrn Nielsen, Kristina Rasmussen, Randi Kirsten Srensen, Brittany McInerney, Maddy Wong, Sara Schneider, Howsem Huang, Alison Throckmorton, and Michelle Clair.

LEGO, the LEGO logo, the Minifigure, the Brick and Knob configurations, DUPLO and the DUPLO logo, FRIENDS and the FRIENDS logo are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group. 2022 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved. Manufactured by Chronicle Books, 680 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107 under license from the LEGO Group. Made in China by C&C Joint Printing Co., Shanghai, China, May 2022.

THE LEGO MOVIE & DC, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., & The LEGO Group.

Previous page: Photograph by Danny Hilkman.

Opposite: Photograph by Jennifer Jasmin Keler.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-7972-1760-4 (hc), 978-1-7972-2271-4 (ebook)

Design by Howsem Huang.

See the full range of LEGO books and gift products at www.chroniclebooks.com

Chronicle Books LLC, 680 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

Tormod Askildsen, Head of AFOL Engagement, The LEGO Group

The relationships we have with the wonderful LEGO photographers in the BrickCentral and Stuck in Plastic communities are precious to us. We are thrilled that many of them are sharing some of their best work in this book. Even though LEGO photography is an activity everyone can enjoy, these highly creative and talented people are constantly pushing the frontiers of LEGO photography at the highest level using designs with LEGO bricks and the iconic LEGO Minifigure as their preferred objects.

Stuck in Plastic

Welcome Friend! You are holding something special in your hands. A beautiful book filled with LEGO toy photography from all corners of the world, filled with epic stories and small adventures. It was created with passion and love, and it is a dream come true.

When our little creative collective of LEGO toy photographers set sail with the name Stuck in Plastic, @stuckinplastic, years ago we only knew we all shared the same passion for LEGO bricks, whimsical storytelling, and photography.

We started small and have continued to build on our dream. At first, our adventures populated the little screen of your mobile phones on platforms like Instagram and Flickr. Soon thereafter, we began experimenting in the real world. We started to organize reallife toy photography meetups and workshops (we call them toy photo safaris) and staged live exhibitions around the worldfrom highend art galleries and museums to LEGO conventions and pop-up exhibitions in Cape Town, Hamburg, Daejeon, Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, Seattle, Paris, and even at the LEGO House in Billund, to name just a few.

And here we are today: the growing creative collective of Stuck in Plastic, featured in this book. And its not just the nine of us, but many friends contributing work from all over our planet.

We hope the images you find in this book encourage you to explore and dream away, to imagine your own stories and find new inspiration to build and to travel, and to pick up your camera and join our wonderful world of LEGO photography.

We look forward to meeting you, online or in person.

Boris VanrillaerOn behalf of Stuck in Plastic

BrickCentral

BrickCentral is a community of LEGO fans who create visual stories with LEGO bricks and minifigures. Together, weve built an online space that encourages toy photographers to share tips, grow in our craft, and collaborate on projects that push toy photography forward. Now 66,000 members strong, we started from just a simple ideato raise the bar of what LEGO toy photography could be.

Several years ago, I saw a photo of a LEGO minifigure standing on a stormy beach holding a tiny plastic camera up to its eye and I was enthralled. It had been decades since I had played with LEGO bricks and my play was always indoors with classic LEGO Space sets. But here was a LEGO minifigure out exploring the world and taking photos of their adventures from their tiny point of view!

The timing was serendipitous too: I was struggling trying to keep up my photography hobby while taking care of a two-year-old. There wasnt much time to shoot between naps and errands, or space for a camera bag along with a diaper bag.

A LEGO minifigure and a phone were all that Andrew Whyte had with him when he took those photos Id loved so much, and that seemed like a perfect kit for me at the time. My DSLR stayed home, the minifigure went in one pocket, and my phone in the other. In between shots of my kid, Id take photos of my minifigure on the beach, at the playground, and regrettably, in my food.

I started sharing my photos on Instagram and soon found there were many other photographers shooting LEGO toys in the BrickCentral online community, @brickcentral. It was great to be in the company of people who got so much joy out of this quirky hobby and had similar stories about how they got into it.

Now my two-year-old is an eleven-year-old, and I run that LEGO photography community that welcomed me so openly when I was just starting out. Ive long since traded my phone for a mirrorless camera with a macro lens, and now Im no longer trying to squeeze in time to take LEGO photos, but rather I go out on excursions just for that purpose.

This book is a selection of images by LEGO photographers out on their own excursions with probably more than a LEGO minifigure in one pocket and a phone in the other. I hope that the photos inspire you, wherever you are in the world, to pick up your camera and tell your own stories. And when you do, come join us at BrickCentral. We cant wait to see what youve dreamed up.

Anna BitangaOn behalf of BrickCentral

Yan Chevalier

Ingolstadt, Germany

My family always travels together, even on a deserted planet. Or is it the Earth, centuries from now? I carried this space family all year long on my hikes, trying in vain to find the best spot to shoot it. Recently, my daughter saw them and wanted to play along in the local park. We played until we reached a construction site, a deserted place with large concrete sewer pipes. The gloomy sky behind one of them was perfect, and I asked her to place the space family and their buggy on top of it.