The Series “Toy Stories” Focuses On Children Around The World Showcasing Their Toy Collections (30 Pics)

Bored Panda has reached out to Gabriele to find out more about the “Toy Stories” project. Starting from the beginning, we wanted to know the genesis of this series. The photographer told us: “I started this project almost by accident. In 2010 and 2011 I was working for an Italian magazine called "D di La Repubblica," I had a weekly column about travel and hospitality. Basically, I traveled to 56 countries around the world for two years going to sleep in the homes of people who were hosting me through the website couchsurfing.org. Every week I would publish portraits of the people who hosted me and their stories in the magazine. A few weeks before that long trip, a dear friend of mine had called me to her home to take photographs of her daughter Alessia. When I arrived there, Alessia (4 years old at the time) was putting her toys in order. I helped her, had the idea to advise her to put them in order by shape and color, and without realizing it I took the first photo of this project. I really liked that photo and then decided to try to replicate the same concept in every country I would visit during my couchsurfing world tour.” 

Next, Gabriele gave us more insights about the project: “ I gave myself one rule: find children between the ages of 3 and 6 and photograph them with their favorite toys. I chose this age because I thought that in those years children have only one concern: to play! The children I then photographed were often, if not always, related to the families who were hosting me. Sometimes children or grandchildren, sometimes neighbors, or children of friends, etc. During that trip, I photographed about 70 of them. Then over the years, I kept photographing new ones every time I was visiting a country where I had never been before. I think right now my project has more than 100 photographs.”

Asked about his approach to photographing children who may not have been accustomed to being in front of a camera, Gabriele explained the whole process: “As a first thing I certainly always need the complicity of the parents who are the first to explain the idea of my photographs to their children, while I show them the photos I have taken previously. It is very nice then to see that in 90% of cases, the children immediately understand the concept and participate in the shooting as if it were a game. This is perhaps less easy when they are 3-year-olds ... but when they are 5-6 years old they immediately understand what I am doing and participate while having fun.”

We wanted to find out if there was any particularly memorable experience photographer had while working on the "Toy Stories" project, but Gabriele shortly answered that: “It is not easy to tell an only story. Every family I met, and every child I photographed, left me with unique memories and teachings.