The building blocks of fame

The artist Mike Stimpson recreates famous images out of Lego pieces.

Mike Stimpson has gained an internet following for Lego recreations of famous images such as "Tiananmen Square".

The image is familiar. A row of workmen eat their lunch as they sit on an iron crossbeam suspended high above the New York skyline. But something is not quite right. Instead of the careworn but self-possessed faces of the original subjects, these faces stare blankly into the middle distance. Plus, they're yellow. Obviously this is not Charles C Ebbets' photograph Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, taken during the construction of the GE building at New York's Rockefeller Center in 1932. In fact, it's an exact replica of the photograph rendered in Lego. It's one of a series of photographs that re-imagine iconic shots using the celebrated Danish children's toy. They are the work of Mike Stimpson, a 35-year-old computer games programmer from the West Midlands whose photos have been frequently published in the UK and have now developed a substantial following online.

Stimpson, a Lego buff with a liking for the landscapes of Ansel Adams and the street photography of Henri Cartier Bresson, started his Lego recreations in October 2008 and has since reworked a host of sometimes surprisingly tragic photos in a tiny dark room in his home. Robert Capa's Falling Soldier and Eddie Adams' Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner, originally terrifying examples of man's inhumanity to man, seem wickedly funny once they have been given Stimpson's Lego treatment. Stimpson admits some people find his photos distasteful, but he denies they are supposed to be viewed as parodies or pastiche.

"They are all tributes," Stimpson says. "There is no political agenda behind my work. It is there to entertain." Stimpson says he only wants to bring classic photographs and photographers to a new audience, and he is quick to point out that the images are not as simple to reconstruct as they at first appear. He usually spends hours fastidiously reconstructing not only the composition but also the light treatment of each image he works on. And sometimes things don't work as well as he hoped.

His version of Joe Rosenthal's 1945 photo Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is, he says, "a disaster in terms of historical accuracy". The reason? "The American flag has too many stars for the time, and there should have been five people raising the flag," he says (his supplier did not have enough Second World War Lego figures in stock). Luckily, there were no such problems for Lunch Atop a Skyscraper: Stimpson purchased the figures specifically for the photograph and sat them on a "girder" clamped to a lightstand. The background skyscrapers were also made from Lego.

But one of the toughest shots he has ever tried to recreate was Alfred Eisenstaedt's V-J Day in Times Square. "Lego don't make any sailor figures so I had to improvise with an airline pilot," he says. "The Lego nurse is also missing her right arm as the two figures couldn't get physically close enough with all limbs attached. They're all stuck together with Blu-Tack, as I had a terrible time trying to get them to balance."

Stimpson says his photos usually elicit a positive response from his many online fans. And while Lego has not officially contacted him, he's heard on the grapevine it admire of his work. Toy photography may seem a unique pursuit but Stimpson is not alone. The US photographer Brian McCarty has carved a career snapping exotic Japanese-style toys in real life scenarios while Chris McVeigh (Powerpig) and Alex Eylar (Profound Whatever) both use Lego to humorous effect in their pictures. All have benefited from the attention the web has brought to their work.

"There are quite a few online groups that specialise in toy photography," confirms Stimpson. "It's a good place to look around for inspiration." Of course, Stimpson is no stranger to the web, and his work can be seen on online art community website Redbubble (www.redbubble.com/people/balakov). As for the future, Stimpson says his Classics in Lego series is "still ongoing". "It's just getting very difficult to find photos that will work in Lego now," he says. "I'd love to do Philippe Halsman's Dali Atomicus, but I think that's going to be really hard."