My Kind of Toy Photography

Art Sparker, who does some mean toy work herself––(her IG; most of her concoctions are on her on-vacation Etsy though)––pointed me to Toringlock's Instagram. 

Toringlock records my sort of toy life, complete with stories I relate to and a smattering of religion presented with both a respectful affection and a dubiosity I share
––or so it seems to me, in, for instance, this wonderful portrait of Ursine Beatitude.

Below, some of Toringlock's toys departing to join a cult because he "hadn't been paying them enough attention"  [scroll right for full posting]

I love it, but this photo worries me. I want to know what's happened since––ARE THEY ALRIGHT? 
That tension, the tug of the hook, pulling you forward--that's all part of a good (toy) photograph.

Also, the care with which they're packed in (that doesn't just happen), complete with doilies, and a sock––for a sail? a flag of surrender? or of dingy but unflagging hope?

I think––delightfully––of Eward Lear's Jumblies "who went to sea in a Sieve…

"With only a beautiful pea-green veil
Tied with a riband by way of a sail,
To a small tobacco-pipe mast..."

And, not so delightfully, of immigrants crammed in steerage, the movie Ship of Fools, and of refugees on the seas, and children joining cults of all kinds, flying into buildings and the like...

But I take hope from the Jumblies:

"In twenty years they all came back,
In twenty years or more,
And every one said, ‘How tall they’ve grown!’" 

The photo (well, and the words) invites all sorts of extensions---that's a good toy story.

I've been enjoying the Toy Photographers blog, and some do tell a good story, but I haven't joined because... I don't see anything much like what I do, or want to do. 

Specifically, no stuffed animals or even fabrics.

There's a lot of fantastic LEGO minifig & action figure photography out there, and while I admire much of it (some, very much!), it doesn't call to me the way the touch of a lone, dirty sock does.