Imaginative photographer shoots stunning scenes using toys including Kermit the Frog and Star Wars’ Darth Vader
TOY Story’s Woody and Buzz take a hose trip to the infinity pool and beyond.
Mitchel Wu, 57, creates incredible scenes using play figures, including Woody’s Toy Story pals Duke Caboom and Forky, Star Wars’ Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper, Marvel’s Ant-Man and Kermit the Frog with nephew Robin.
The photographer, of LA, said: “Toy photography is the best way to play with toys as an adult without someone calling the police.”
He added: “When I posted that image people had such a strong loving, emotional response to it.
“I guarantee it was the first time anyone ever had warm feelings towards xenomorphs!”
The photos can take anywhere from a couple of hours, to most of a day, to set up, shoot and edit.
But, as a dad who spent years watching classic Disney and Studio Ghibli films with his now 19-year-old daughter, he said that the nostalgia that his job creates “makes me feel warm inside”.
“I love seeing it through my daughter’s eyes.
“Most people still have that young, 10-year-old kid within them, but as you get older it gets really hard to access that part of yourself.
“But it’s hard to make the images that I do without going back to that time and that world where you played make believe.”
Since starting toy photography in late 2015, Mitchel has had contracts to create images for big-name brands including Disney, Hasbro, Warner Bros, Kinder Surprise, and Mattel, among others.
Before photographing toys, he was a lifestyle photographer.
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