A photographer completely recreated a location from the Star Wars universe using a playset and some clever lighting.
Also known as Matthew Cohen @shootingthegalaxytells petapixel To create a realistic shot he used the Star Wars The Vintage Collection Moff Gideon Imperial Light Cruiser Hallway action figure playset produced by Hasbro.
“It’s about 1/18 or 3.75-inch scale,” explains Cohen. “Well, it’s actually four of them combined. This set is modular and I can make any number of sets I have.”
This model is based on Moff Gideon’s cruiser, which appears in a set piece The Mandalorian TV show.
make it realistic
Cohen didn’t just put his lens inside the playset, a lot of thought went into the composition and lighting, too.
“I always try to treat my images like the source material,” says Cohen. “The playsets have what I always call ‘light piping’; Transparent pieces that catch light on one side of the toy and emit light on the other side.
The playset doesn’t have a roof, so Cohen improvised by grabbing some metal server housings lying around and using them as a roof.
He added, “The vents that were cut into the side almost exactly matched those on the show’s set.”
The pillars in the photo serve as the main lights, which are individually illuminated by eight handheld panel lights. The light coming through the holes from above acts as a filler.
“Just a little light from two large panel lights hung directly above goes a long way,” says Cohen.
“It’s topped with diffusion paper (but I’ve used printer paper for a similar setup) to give it the same feel as a pole light.”
The red circular light in the image needed a little Photoshop work.
“I took several shots with a small handheld cube light aimed at them. This was to make them brighter than just panels,” he says.
“In Photoshop, I had to hide those individual elements. This could be done in one go. But it was faster that way as opposed to installing eight more lights for those elements.
Talking about Photoshop, Cohen says it has its “own special sauce”, but adds that the final photo is not much different from RAW.
“The biggest change I would make would be to change the color grading to match the source material a little more. I added a little more green and blue to my original image,” he added.
Cohen believes the playset’s reflective floor helps make it feel realistic. He also says that shooting photos with plenty of depth of field, f/16 to f/20, is also important to achieve fidelity.
feedback
Cohen shared his photo On the StarWars subreddit Where it got thousands of upvotes.
He says that unfolding a scene without any characters is not something he has done before.
“It gave me a new perspective on lighting in a cinematic style without the actual subject,” Cohen says.
Of course, star wars Movie franchises often use miniature sets to film some epic scenes Phantom Menace,
Cohen became involved in toy photography when his fiancée surprised him with an action figure and he saw it as a way to capture things on camera and collect toys. This gift led to a “dream career” as he now shoots toys full-time for one of the largest toy companies in the world: Hasbro.
“I shoot wherever I have space at home or on a few tables in my basement,” he says.
“A lot of toy photography is really just that. Grab some toys and see what you can do. TV screen volumes become digital sets, Christmas decorations become snow scenes, old computer parts become sci-fi ceilings.
“I still do this in my spare time for fun. Experimenting and being crafty and then taking that with me into a professional studio setting and taking what I learned, photographing toys on my kitchen table.
More of Cohen’s work can be found at Instagram And website,
Image Credit: Photos by Matthew Cohen
