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More samples of my favorite photos, showing how they were taken.
Enginehouse Interior
My scratchbuilt HO scale enginehouse was made specfically so I could take photos of the interior. It has large windows on both sides, and skylights to allow the maximum amount of light in. It measures 10 inches deep and 8 inches wide. This is a digital image:
  To get the enginehouse up to a comfortable level, it was mounted on a plastic box. A photo light was placed to one side, and another one (not shown) shines light through the skylights. These 600 watt lights run fairly hot, so shooting time needs to be limited. Back in the days with film cameras, I had the lights on a bit too long and the structure started smoldering! Keep this in mind if you use photo lights.
I used the Tamron 11-18mm wide angle lens for the above shot.
The enginehouse was a Model Railroader "Model of the Month" in their June 1983 issue.
Diesels coming out of a tunnel
 Not all photos need to be taken with a wide angle lens, as can be seen with this shot of HO scale diesels emerging from a tunnel. This photo was on the cover of the 2010 NMRA Canada calendar, and was taken with a Tamron 18-200mm zoom lens.
 The tunnel diorama was placed on my posing table, with the main light on the right, the other light was pointed mostly at the cloud background. Note the reflector placed on the table to throw some light into the shaded side of the diesels.
Crane busy loading a container onto a truck:
  Since I don't have a layout where I can pose a lot of my models, I often resort to several "posing boards" made from Styrofoam with some tracks, ground cover and nothing else. Here the modified Walthers Mi-Jack container crane is posed on the board with some highway trucks. Using the 11-18mm wide angle lens and f/22 allowed me to get in real close. A somewhat similar shot can be taken with the 18-55mm lenses that come with most recent DSLRs, the camera just needs to be back a bit more.
The scene in the background is my original shelf layout that has been stripped of everything but trackwork, with structures and details added for different scenes.
Note the white reflector to the right of the camera, to add some light to the shadow side of the crane
MORE sample photos HERE
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