Toy or Model Photography part 1

One of my (many) hobbies, is building scale models and an area of photography i have recently got very interested in is shooting them. I don't mean just a quick snap shot of them on a table top, but an attempt to make them look as real as possible.

A quick search for "toy photography" on YouTube will produce hundreds of examples of this type of work. Some of it excellent, some of it not so, but inspirational all the same.

As i have boxes full of these old plastic kits, doing very little other than take up space, i thought about using them as subjects. So, my models became my models.

The indoor stuff is all against a black background. In a darkened room i am using a technique known as "painting with light". What happens is the shutter is open for anything upto 10 seconds, during which time i move the light from an LED torch over the model, being very careful not to let it spill onto the background.

The results can be seen in these two shots, together with other examples on my facebook page

 https://www.facebook.com/iansimpsonphotography/

Its not as difficult as it looks. Give it a try. And if you want to learn more, contact me.

Happy clicking.