Plastic art nostalgia.

Several years ago, I had this idea that I wanted to shoot cool pictures of vintage Star Wars figures. But while I do okay with snapshots and basic scenery and things, when it comes to setting up detailed photos and working with light and angles and all that, y’know, fo-to-graffy stuff, I kinda suck. I can never quite get what I have in my head to come out that way in photo form.

A couple days ago, I got an email about Collect All 21! from a guy who, it turns out, is succeeding magnificently where I would utterly fail. It’s not that there are loads of detailed backgrounds or anything – in fact, most of the shots are pretty minimalist, with just figures and shadows – but I can’t get over the composition and the contrast in focus and colors.

I like this one a lot, and this one, and this one, too (some, like that last one of R2, have sort of abstract backdrops that really fit well with the figures and remind me of Kenner’s back-of-the-package photos from early in the original line).

My favorite, though, is this one:

Red.

It absolutely takes me back to the release of Kenner’s “second wave” of Star Wars figures, when suddenly we had all these weird aliens and robots in bright colors to go along with the original 12.

Go check all of them out, and prepare to wonder where the time went.