Some play with toys, others take photos of them in awesome situations.
Toys, even if they’re just anime figures, have a special place in our lives. I collect them because they decorate my room and bring a certain pop-art aesthetic to it – and I like to play with Lego and poseable anime figures as well.
I did some photos (on my crummy cameraphone) of some of my collection in awesome situations, making them truly “action” figures. These poses of my toys aren’t just display pieces, they provide a context to characters given toy form that have been divorced from their original context – like a panda taken out of its natural environment and put in a zoo for people to look at and enjoy the novelty of it all.
What happens to our toys/anime figures after we buy them? Do you play with them and take photos of them? Or are they just on your shelf? In the movie Toy Story, toys yearn to be played with because that is what gives them joy, apart from having a life outside their owners, being played with is their sole purpose in life, death of a sort coming when they are outgrown.
If you do take photos of your toys/anime figures, why do you do it? Did you buy them to look nice in your room to start with, but wanted to share your joy of collecting figures with the world?
This interview with HappySoda photographer SuperRats got me thinking about how I’ve taken an interest in buying a camera for figure photography. Not just for figure photography either – plenty of visual cues from photographs are used in my writing. I’d also like to take photos at events more. For these reasons I’ve begun to save for a camera of my own.
There are a lot of figure photographers in the anime blogosphere, and many Lego photographers on the internet as well. I’d like to join them, but half the battle is saving for an appropriate camera. Saving is half the battle, because most of the time I spend money on figures… T______T
DancingQueen is an awesome gal who collects anime figures, collectables from an industry that sadly neglects female interests by not producing many anime figures of male figures, due to the fact male otaku buy female figures more frequently. DancingQueen makes no apologies for her hobby but is nonetheless responsible about it – she’s had to sell many a figure because she needed money for more figures she’s more interested in. I don’t know if I would ever sell any of my figures, I get very attached to them.
I’d like more figure photographers to try and post fun pictures of their toys/anime figures as part of this new meme I’m trying to start up. Anyone can jump on this bandwagon, as long as the new figures you bought don’t take up too much room on said bandwagon (heh heh, take THAT ME!… sigh).
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Copyright © Jacob Martin 2009. All Rights Reserved.
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