Last month, I co-hosted a LEGO photo contest with Jay’s Brick Blog where LEGO fans had to come up with a small vendor model or minifig that would fit in the world of the Medieval Town Square 10332. We received hundreds of submissions and it took days to arrive at the winners after a few rounds of shortlisting.
As a LEGO photographer, I wanted to introduce builders to the hobby of creative LEGO photography and show them there are different ways to play with LEGO. For the market stall category, I made it a requirement to shoot outdoors so they’d think about suitable environments, scale, lighting, and transporting the models. For the minifig category, participants could choose a natural or brick-built background.
But the photography was just one out of three criteria. The other two were to have a fun idea and an interesting creation.
In that spirit, Jay Ong and I, along with our guest judge Gonza Carro who’s a well-known medieval MOC builder, picked our winners.
Market Stall Winners
The Bardmobile submitted by AthenaCaprice on Reddit delivered on the fun idea and interesting creation criteria to claim the top prize of a Medieval Town Square set! This caravan actually converts into a stage for the traveling band.
As for the photography criteria, the model is in focus but so is everything else. It would have looked a lot better against a simpler environment or with some distance from that foliage. The dominant red thankfully creates a lot of contrast against that green and commands our attention.
I gave the submission extra points for storytelling and the multiple angles.
The runner-up prize of the Viking Village 21343 went to Petreos Puppet Emporion and Theater by stories_in_bricks who submitted on Discord and Instagram.
This was another fun vendor idea for the residents of Felsa at the market in the town square.
The tiny models are colorful, cute, and have lots of fun details in them. The pedal-powered woodturner is a great touch that elevated the simple market stall structure.
The compact theater is adorable and eye-catching too. Petreos sure knows how to market his wares.
The photography is great: the setting was simple and scaled well to minifigs. Nothing competes with the subject but we still have a good sense of place.
I also gave plus points for showing us lots of angles and telling a story.
Minifig Winners
There were two equal prizes of the Medieval Castle 33120 given to the winners of the custom minifig category, the_aphol and boreal.bricks.
Magnus Ironbrow has some great NPU– Nice Part Usage in AFOL speak, which means finding a new way to use a LEGO piece. The moustache turned upside down and secured to the top of the LEGO head with a 1×1 stud is brilliant and fun!
This is the first time I’ve ever seen anyone do that, but original or not, the_aphol made it funny. The photography is fantastic too with a nice environment for this portrait. (Moss scales really well to minifigs, grass doesn’t.)
The forest guardian/barbarian has a great aesthetic. The floral tattooed arm from the CMF Series 26 fitness instructor combined with the torso of the CMF Series 22 forest elf works great for this character. The hair from Hidden Side and the fur collar have similar texture and play off each other well.
It’s the second photo that won me over with the great posing though. I’m glad boreal.bricks went the extra mile to create a more dynamic shot with their minifig.
Worthy Entries
There were hundreds of photos submitted and there was a lot of back and forth on my part because I wanted to make sure that the spirit of the contest was about having fun with LEGO, in both the build and in the photo, without getting bogged down with technical expertise in either.
There were plenty of entries that fit the criteria too and I wanted to showcase some that stood out to me for one reason or another. Here are the nearly 60 entries that made my shortlist:
Market Stall Category
Minifig Category
Keep bricking and clicking
There’s clearly a huge pool of talent in the LEGO community! I’m so inspired by these entries and I’ll definitely reach out to collaborate with some of the people who entered.
If it was your first time taking photos of your LEGO models and minifigures, I hope you discovered a new way to play and the welcoming community of LEGO photographers!
Keep sharing and posting on the Stud Shooters subreddit because I’ll be giving structured tips on how to improve your LEGO photography there as well as holding contests, AMAs, practice sessions, and challenges.
You’ll find beginners to advanced photographers in the Stud Shooters community so just join in whatever level you are!
Stay tuned for more LEGO photography contests like this one by joining the main community r/studshooters on Reddit or following Stud Shooters on Instagram, Tumblr, or Mastodon for updates and features.