Lego Tableaus Re-Create Classic Photos

Lego fanboy and amateur photographer Mike Stimpson found a way to combine his two loves: He recreates scenes from historic photographs using the plastic bricks, then snaps his own photos.

Charles Ebbets' Lunch Atop a Skyscraper served as the inspiration for Stimpson's first Lego duplication. The original was shot during construction of Rockefeller Center in 1932. To stock up for the shoot, Stimpson says he bought more than 30 Lego minifigures to ensure he'd have enough variety to imitate the men in Ebbets' photo.



War photographer Robert Capa became famous in 1936 for his image of a soldier collapsing after a fatal gunshot during the Spanish Civil War. Stimpson used towels and jumpers to create the backdrop of the photograph, then added a Lego character to mimic the dying militiaman.




At first, Stimpson wasn't sure how to represent the graveness captured in the 1968 image -- which shows a Viet Cong prisoner being executed -- but in the end he arranged a Lego-ized U.S. soldier and civilian on a Lego roadway and took the shot.



Stimpson made a few modifications for this version of an iconic 1967 image showing a hippie holding a flower out to a line of armed soldiers.

The original was taken by French photographer Marc Riboud at a Vietnam War protest in Washington, D.C. Stimpson swapped the antiwar activist in the image for Star Wars hero Han Solo, then used Imperial stormtroopers for his creation, dubbed Anti-Empire Protest.