The Narrative Toys Can Tell

Photographer Oliver Peterson can’t help but think in miniature.

When he sees an ideal piece of grass — not too thick or too long — it excites him, and he notes the location. Day-to-day objects constantly inspire, and he wonders if they’ll translate. And when he’s out on a shoot, if a dry leaf blows into frame, he quickly tosses it away, knowing it could destroy the illusion.

That’s because his models, more often than not, are no taller than 6 inches.

For the last seven and a half years, the lifelong toy collector has breathed life into his thousands upon thousands of collectibles — from Marvel Legends and Star Wars to pop culture and military figures — from behind his lens, capturing how he has always seen and felt about them.

“For the most part, it’s a joyous thing for me. I think about it all the time,” he said of toy photography from his home in Center Moriches. “It really does obsess my thoughts. If I’m anywhere, I’m always looking and saying, ‘Oh, that would scale down.’”

While his journey officially began with one roll of slide film in 1987 — featuring GI Joe’s Leatherneck and Outback posed together on a rock waterfall and creeping through the grass in his grandmother’s backyard — Peterson would circle back to his vast collection in 2014 with an iPhone in hand, before graduating to a DSLR.

That’s when the game really changed, he said.

Two years later, he officially joined the ranks of celebrated toy photographers when Hasbro selected one of his images — Rey cruising across Jakku on her landspeeder in “Star Wars”— for display at San Diego Comic-Con.

Fast-forwarding to today, at age 45, Peterson — who is also a journalist and mixed media artist — is refining his voice as a toy photographer, while still having fun with perspective and humor, from Ant-Man feeding a seed to a real-life bird to Deadpool snapping a selfie with Santa Claus.

“That, for instance, that was a Santa Claus statue at CVS and I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s so funny, he’s the perfect size for a 12-inch action figure,’” Peterson said.

One of his newest acquisitions, a life-sized Grogu — affectionately known as “Baby Yoda,” who still tops out at just 18 inches tall — was recently seen outside blowing dandelions and munching on flowers in the grass, while many of Peterson’s characters frequent local beaches, including his 1:18 scale military figures.

“I feel like they might be the most interesting, from a fine arts perspective,” he said. “There’s commentary built in there with toys and the violence of war put together. It’s certainly an interesting, thought-provoking juxtaposition.”

As riots against police brutality broke out across the country after George Floyd’s murder, Peterson was left grappling with his own frustration over racism and chose to express it by posing one of his figurines with a Molotov cocktail in his hand, standing on a rooftop against the backdrop of a burning world.

“It probably lost me some followers, but I don’t care,” he said. “Not that I’m in favor of throwing Molotov cocktails and blowing things up, but it was a way to channel the rage of what was going on and capturing the moment.”

Deciding on the location and, in some cases, building an elaborate diorama to go with it, is an extremely time-consuming process, Peterson explained, as are setting up the figurines in life-like poses themselves. In a scene with Pepper Potts helping Tony Stark, who is Iron Man, walk after a battle, the balance between them and weight distribution between their feet is precise — which was intentional, he said, and took tremendous effort to execute.

“A lot of times, I’ll be standing there and trying to move my own body to see,” he said. “Something you would never think of, if you’re shooting somebody running, your right arm and right leg are never both forward at the same time. When we run, our left arm is forward and our right leg is forward. You may not realize, looking at it, that’s what’s wrong with it, but there will be something subconscious that clues you that there’s something not quite right about it.”

With the poses nailed, the final image is a combination of post-production special effects and on-location magic, which can look like atmosphere aerosol to create fog, lit gunpowder to make explosions, or sprinkling baking soda that mimics snow.

“It can be super-duper frustrating, too, because shit falls over,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll be at the beach and I get it all posed and I move my camera back, and suddenly the wind blows, or the water comes up too far, and it f---s the whole thing up. There’s a lot of that.”

He took a deep breath. “But I enjoy it, you know?” he continued. “When I go to bed at night, I fall asleep easily because I can let my mind wander to these places, and it’s very satisfying and relaxing to me. I think about my toys all the time.”