Flickr LEGO Build & Capture contest winners

[Bruce N H]

Hey all,

Flickr recently announced the [url=https://blog.flickr.net/en/2021/12/07/announ ... nt=winners]winners of the 2021 LEGO Build & Capture contest[/url]. All of the winners are awesome (and if you click through the blog to the entry pool there are over 3000 entries), but 2 of the 6 winning entries are castle themed:

Nathan Smith's [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/186544221@N08/51632506995]Sunset of Empires[/url] is just an amazing build and is beautifully photographed. He's also got a great story to go along with it. I would encourage everyone to click through to his photostream. He's a master of using dramatic lighting effects, camera angles, deep focus vs shallow focus, and fog effects to make scenes out of his MOCs that really tell a story, a large percentage of which are castle (including Tolkien) themed.
[url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/186544221@N08/51632506995][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51632506 ... 3c1b_w.jpg[/img][/url]

Tom Milton's [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomtommilton/49838371406]The road must be trod[/url] isn't about the build at all. It's just about taking minifigs and masterfully posing and photographing them in a natural setting, to make you think they are trekking far over the misty mountains cold (okay, I know, that's a quote from the Hobbit, not Fellowship). Clicking through to his photostream you can see tons of photos that take LEGO and other toys and make truly cinematic scenes.
[url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomtommilton/49838371406][img]https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/49838371 ... 7bcc_w.jpg[/img][/url]

Oh, I can't let this by without some Tolkien nerdery. This is such an amazing shot that it pains me that the company seems to be walking NORTH (?!??!). The full company is together so they've got to be between Rivendell and Moria, when they were on the east side of the mountain range - so the peaks should be to minifigs' left, not to their right. Sure, I suppose they didn't walk in a straight line and there could be times that peaks were to their right. For instance, this could be after they got turned back at the pass of Caradhras, but then there should be snow.

Bruce

[mrcp6d]

Totally agree about Nathan's entry. Spectacular build, beautifully composed, and then expertly photographed. And I didn't know he existed until the contest. The really cool thing about a lot of Lego contests is finding other builders that aren't in your current circle!

[Elephant Knight]

Those are both amazing pictures, but the one is also a truly outstanding MOC! The builder really knew what they were doing! Many wonderful details, the little snippet of story, the overall scaling of the MOC. Truly an epic masterpiece!

EKnight

[AK_Brickster]

That first shot..... incredible.

[jtooker]

Nathan Smith's Sunset of Empires caught my eye immediately. The lighting and photography is out of this world! I love the tree - I'd be interested to know if it looks at good in real life (or from other angles) - if so, I'll have to incorporate this type of tree into my builds.

[Bruce N H]

I love the tree - I'd be interested to know if it looks at good in real life (or from other angles) - if so, I'll have to incorporate this type of tree into my builds.

Really impossible to say, as he just posts one or at most two perfectly composed shots of each of his scenes. So unless he has a second Flickr account where he posts WIP pictures or just more views and angles we can't know. Those walls on the left and right could just be facades and not full MOCs (not a critique, he's building for the scene and this would be perfectly appropriate), but on the other hand I'm looking at the details of some of his scenes and they look really solidly built. For instance check out the gallery of arches in his [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/186544221@N08/ ... ateposted/]before the siege[/url].

I was just now looking closely at the microscale in the background of this scene, and even just that part by itself is a really amazing build.

Bruce