Plymouth Photographer Creates Vivid Battle Scenes with Toys
On a beautiful spring day, it’s a perfect excuse to get outside.
“There’s so much nature here,” said Jonathan Ness of Plymouth as he entered French Regional Park. “Being able to take some time and just be out in nature in the thick of it, it’s a place of refuge and peace.”
However, Ness didn’t come to the park on this sunny day just to soak up the sun.
He is a man on a mission.
His goal is to get just the right camera shot of his vast collection of Star Wars storm troopers.
“So today, we are doing the 332nd siege battalion,” he said, as he arranged various action figures. “They’re more jungle guys. Or at least that’s how I write them and shoot them.”
In a sense, you could call Ness a war photographer, but the battles he captures all involve toys.
“I’m basically recapturing the battles I had as a kid,” he said.
Toys, which are carefully arranged to make the scene look as realistic as possible.
“You don’t want just grass,” he said. “You want other elements that signal to the photo like, this is Endor, or this is a different world.”
One of the many Star Wars-themed photographs taken by Jonathan Ness of Plymouth.
The 25-year old Ness has been involved with toy photography for the last 18 years. It’s a hobby that started when he was in, of all places, church.
“I was like ‘man, I don’t want these [toys] to just be idols. I don’t want to be one of those in-box collectors,” said Ness. “So I was asking God, ‘what can I do to make this not idolization?’ And I heard him say to me, ‘shoot them.'”
And shoot them, he did.
His Instagram page shows a vast array of photographs where he uses nature and the elements to make his toys stand out.
“Toy photography has to be explosive. There has to be a level of chaos to it,” Ness said.
This hobby has helped him develop a close-knit family of other toy photography enthusiasts.
“I’ve had friends on there who’ve saved my life,” he said. “I met my best friend who lives in England through doing the LEGO photography that I did, and he was at my graduation last summer. So huge blessing.”
It’s a blessing he’s happy to share with others, and it’s proof that you’re never too old to be a kid.
“I am definitely not normal. I am weird,” he said. “But I am confident weird, so that makes me cool.”
To date, Ness estimates that’s he’s spent more than $10,000 on the hobby. But his art has been featured in coffee shops and he’s even helped to run toy photography boot camps.
Jonathan Ness sets up a scene next to Medicine Lake in Plymouth.
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