TwistedSifter: For the last 25 years, Michael Paul Smith has used model cars, forced perspective and custom-built miniature displays in real-world settings to create Elgin Park, Smith’s version of a mid 20th century American town
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and currently living in New England, Smith’s model-making skills are the accumulation of numerous jobs he has had including: textbook illustrator, wallpaper hanger, house painter, and architectural model maker.
17 comments:
This is truly amazing. I am speechless and completely blown away. The pictures seem SO life like and vivid just like they were taken out history. I skimmed his interview and he said that he does not do math, he just has learned the right distance to be to produce the correct shot. I am just blown away. It is really really cool.
So many of his pictures just have feel of a aged. I think it is awesome.
I have always found it interesting how people recreate miniature scenes and upon seeing this, I am a thousand times more amazed. The amount of detail into the models as well as the location is quite precise! I think it would interesting to see him work as well and learn from his techniques.
I love this. The angle is just right for the cars to look real. I like that the artist did not only use model scenes but also incorporated the real life size scenery. These pictures also really make you realize how detailed the scale model cars are, so much so that you really cant tell the difference even up close. I also think the scale model roads he used are pretty impressive because they also look real even up close.
This article is absolutely amazing. I think that the concept is really interesting and it certainly appeals to my interest in the old fashion way of life. Not only is this a great idea but from what I seen he has executed his art flawlessly. The use of angles in his work are stunning. Had I not known that model cars were used, I would never believed the photo was anything less than a full scale mock up. The addition of a filter is like icing on the cake, truly making these photos appear more nostalgic. What an awesome piece of art!
This is so cool! When I started reading this article, I was interested because I think miniature anything is pretty interesting, but when I realized what they meant about using the scenery as a part of the photo I was amazed. I can't even imagine the technical skill that must have gone into these models and on top of that, the artist seamlessly incorporates the backgrounds is incredible! The ones with buildings are particularly impressive to me. It looks like the cars are parked right outside of the house! Another thing to consider is how knowledgeable the artist must be in automobile history and architectural history to perfectly create these little scenes.
This was such a cool article. The detail that Smith puts into his models is so fantastic. Even in full-scale they look completely realistic. The technique that he's developed to make this models look full size is flawless, and without the before and after images I never would have been able to tell that the images weren't real. This article kind of reminds me of a photographer named Paolo Ventura, who creates worlds out of found objects. I always find it so cool when artists are able to create fake worlds and photograph them in a way that makes them seem so realistic.
I very much enjoyed this photo collection. I would love to hear Michael Paul Smith explain the steps he takes to create such good looking images. From my limited understanding of forced perspective (base on drafting class) the processes changes the shape of the objects in order to make them look larger but fit in a smaller space. This normally ends in a distorted object shape. I doesn't look like Michael's tiny cars are distorted. I'm interested to see how those two things can mesh.
The tittle of Michael Paul Smith's book is rather confusing to me. Elgin Park: An Ideal American Town What does he mean by an "Ideal American Town"? At best this could be nostalgia, at worst it's an aversion to change and a lack of acceptance of the now. Weird tittle that's all I'm saying.
I've seen Mr. Smith's work before, so I was quite pleased to see it show up on the green page. What interested me is that the photographs show obvious artistic quality and sensibility, yet Mr. Smith does not seem to consider his work art, merely a hobby. He has a gifted eye for perspective, and he is clearly putting it to use. The idea of taking lifelike miniature photos is nothing new, however his twist of using real backgrounds is quite original and refreshing.
I saw this on buzzfeed a few weeks ago, but I didn't see the photos of the model cars with his face in the picture. Those were hilarious! It was really cool to see these images because at the time, we were working on our perspective drawings in Studiocraft II. I think what amazed me the most was the fact that Smith made reality and his creation seamless. I would be curious to see what the pictures look like without the filters on them. Would they have the same effect? I am also curious to know how Smith decided where to position the cars according to the background. Was it a measurement or was it just his eye? These photos are a great tool to use when creating scale models for theatre.
This is amazing! I love how the line between large and small is blurred in these pictures. I also really appreciate the detail with which the bases for his pictures are filled. The images where it looks like the cars are on concrete that line up with a scene in the background, there is particulate or what looks like oil puddles on the base that translate very well in the final product. It is great that someone with so many talents found a way to combine them to do something he loves with his prized possessions.
It's incredible how much thought goes into these images. Its always awesome to see people pick up hobbies that are different and that are really innovative. Smith has found a hobby that is not only unique but truly impressive and one that must be great for starting a good conversation.
It seems to that even though we could recreate any of these small scale scenes though CGI, that the thought, effort and magic put into these images lends them a quality that could not be achieved without the craftsmanship involved. Just as how learning to hand draft before using a CAD program is important, it teaches the fundamentals and basics of how to think about a problem, not only how to execute a solution.
The ways we perceive depth are imperfect and easily tricked, and it's interesting to see illustrated in these photos the same simple techniques that artists of all kinds have always employed to manufacture depth. As anyone who has done any perspective drawing or painting will have noticed, things that are far away appear to have less contrast and hue saturation than things up close. Mr. Smith seems to take advantage of this by washing out the color tones in his backgrounds. The effect is then heightened by the bright, high gloss colors on the models. It's interesting to note the picture which fails to produce the false depth, Number 5. The rest of the photos depict either a relatively uniform background of buildings or trees at a similar distance, or a single building without anything else close by to scale it. Number 5 fails because there are two buildings close enough together that we can judge their distance by their relative sizes. The moving truck, the size and distance of which we can also judge based on the other model cars, is then too small in proportion to the green house. If it's just the pink house in the frame (try covering up the green house with your hand) the effect is restored. There are simply too many clues in this picture for the eye to be fooled.
Beautiful model work here, something to aspire to as craftspeople, and a fun lesson in the games we can play with perception on stage, on canvas, and on film.
I have always loved Model Railroads and how realistic they can look if you are very close to them, forcing your perspective to the miniature. I like how the artist goes a step beyond this, using the real world as a background for his miniature one, messing with the camera angles so as to make the scale seem the same. Very Cool.
Wow what an awesome project. The models are so lifelike and real. They remind me of scale architectual models or model train sets. I'd definitely like to check out his book. The post production filters also add a whole extra level of realism. Very cool! I hope to see more.
This is such a cool project! It's amazing how real it looks. It definitely helps that he used real buildings and backgrounds and just changed the angle he took the picture at. It also speaks to how the human brain works and can be tricked. But that's how things like this and optical illusions work. And seeing this only makes me wish time machine were real, because I really do want to go back and see how the world was (for a day or two). (Sorry that's a little off topic :P)
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