Model train pic tip

This snap hopefully shows that you don’t need a pukka studio to get half decent stock shots of our pride and joys.

Here’s how the recent shot of the 14xx was made up - nothing clever, just some nice afternoon light coming in through the window. The scenic track and base was knocked up in an afternoon from some spare Silfor grass matting and some foam board for a recent job I did. It’s since proven really useful for casual snaps like this where I don’t want to use a layout as a backdrop.

The camera was placed on the tiny beanbag in the foreground and fired off with the self timer. The kitchen foil was there to bounce a little light back into the shadows.

Tip: The CAMRA Good Beer Guide is ideal to rest the foil against. Any other solid ale or train related book will be perfect too;-) A pint glass could be yet another option…. The reason for being on the floor was due to the best light being down that low, not the effect of too much ale!

The ’sky’ background, which is best if kept remote from the scenic base, is just a large print of clouds stuck to some foamboard. Keeping it separate allows it to be positioned accordingly to allow it to fill the frame fully. If it was fixed, for 3/4 angle shots of stock I’d run out of sky if it was fixed parallel to the rear of the scenic base. Another option would be to take the whole caboodle outside and use a real background or sky of course! Ok, I admit, the smoke is fake, that's done using the 'clouds filter' in Photoshop.