Photo credit: Alex Gusev
Alex Gusev doesn’t just photograph toys—he manages to create entire worlds from the plastic bricks. Just keep in mind that all of these scenes require some masterful editing to achieve the end results that you see here.
Gusev’s journey began at 15, after receiving a photography book from his mother. By 19, he’d bought his first camera, wandering Moscow’s streets to capture architecture, textures, and nature. Curiosity drove him, not technical mastery. “It was about seeing the world with intention,” he told PetaPixel. LEGO minifigures became his canvas, their blocky forms a surprising medium for storytelling.
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Building a diorama is not easy to say the least, but Gusev still managed to perfect the task. Every scene Gusev builds kicks off with a little burst of inspiration—he starts piecing together his sets with stuff he finds in nature, like twigs or moss. Most cinematographers and photographers know that lighting is key. Fortunately, he has the ability to shape it to pull off that Hollywood glow, and believe me, it takes ages to nail down one perfect shot. He’s constantly messing with angles and shadows in a bid to make those little LEGO minifigures look like they’re smack dab in the middle of some epic moment. “I created scenes where the characters felt alive and in motion,” Gusev shared.
Every picture he takes feels like a mini-movie paused mid-scene—picture a superhero leaping through the air, a solitary figure lost in a mossy woods, or a bustling city crammed into a tiny space. His big moment hit when LEGO caught wind of his early stuff and roped him in, pushing him to fine-tune his skills. What does this mean for Gusev? Hasbro, along with other brands, were hopping on the bandwagon too.
These days, he’s been messing around with AI to lighten the workload, but he’s firm about keeping that handmade touch alive. What’s on the horizon? Video, no doubt—seems like a perfect fit for his film-like style. “There’s always something new to learn,” he said, and you can tell that drive keeps him experimenting nonstop.
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