Forced-perspective toy photography
1 Tripod
A tripod will allow you to set up your composition and then leave the camera in place while you arrange the toys. It also enables you to take a sequence of photos then combine the best parts from each. What’s more, it gives you the option to shoot for a focus stack and extend your depth of field.
2 Platform
To create a forced perspective shot look for a suitable scene with a road or other surface that will be fairly easy to mimic, then create a platform that looks similar. Here we’ve drilled a hole into a piece of wood and attached it to a tripod plate, then fastened sandpaper on the top to look like the surface of the road.
3Snow
Atmospheric details like snow, rain or fog can help to elevate these kind of pictures. On top of that, the ‘weather’ can also help to sell the effect by hiding tell-tale details in the scene. We scattered a handful of baking powder over the car here to create the impression of a flurry of snow.
4 Camera settings
If you want to capture falling snow like this then you need to use a fairly fast shutter speed of 1/800 sec or quicker. We also need to use a narrow aperture for plenty of depth of field. Here the camera is set to Manual mode with the aperture at f/16, shutter speed set to 1/800 sec and an ISO of 1600.
5 Lighting
If the light is shining from behind your model, like the sunlight did in our case, then the front of the subject will be plunged into shadow. This can create dramatic lighting that not only adds to the filmic look, but also helps to shade some of the details of the toy that might give the game away.
6 Toys
Any toy can work for this project, but the more detailed the better, so high-quality die-cast replicas are best. If you’re using a car like this, then the slightly larger 1:24 or 1:16 scale cars tend to work better than the smaller 1:43 toys. But again, you can experiment with different sizes and kinds of figures.