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Thursday, August 6, 2015

Photographing a Town……

Photographing a town that never was. My DH forwarded this email to me of this amazing artist. Such a lot of detail, I would love to see this up close.

It would be so interesting to watch him create each scene and them bring them all together…. This could be any town in any country, but this is a town that is important to him. I won’t post all the photo’s in the email, there are 29 of them… ;o~ but I’ll include a few, and provide some links below to see more of his work.. He must have such a passion for his art, and that’s why he’s so good.

A wonderful time long gone, but preserved by a man with lots of talent.  Photographing A Town That Never Was

Artist and photographer Michael Paul Smith has spent hours upon hours photographing one special town that he holds very dear to his heart. There is something that always drew him to it, and the images he created are simple, but stunning. They glow with small-town charm and innocence, reminiscent of days and decades past.

The town he photographs is quaint and beautiful.cool-miniature-town-cars-photographer-recreation

It’s like each picture tells a story of how life used to be in the  United States 

cool-miniature-town-cars-photographer-recreation-black-whiteThere’s not much going on in these pictures, but it’s obvious that this town is nothing but charm. But, as it turns out, also not real. Michael builds custom miniature models and sets, meticulously crafting every detail.

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Then, the 60 year-old photographer creates the hyper-realistic images. If you didn’t know any better, you might think these are vintage photos of a town from a few decades ago…

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And NOT the extremely small models this man built. He started building these models as an exercise. He wanted to practice his craft and also photography. He never imagined it would be a “dream-like reconstruction” of the town he grew up in. To Michael, this is what quintessential  America looked like when he was a kid. It is absolutely beautiful.

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If “ Elgin Park ” were a real town, I would love to live there. He creates the scenes by setting up Danbury Mint and Franklin Mint die cast autos and trucks in front of his models on card tables. Then, he uses the surrounding scenery to make the backgrounds for the photos. The perspective has to be JUST right…cool-miniature-town-cars-photographer-recreation-buildings

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Usually the resulting photos are completely convincing. Even  when you know what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s all an illusion. But Michael is able to make an incredibly convincing one.

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His selfies aren’t part of the official photo series, but I think they just add to the charm of his work.

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To see more of this man’s amazing art, follow these links.

His flickr page

His Website

A video of how he does what he does

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2 comments:

  1. Wow, that's amazing! Thanks for the links Romona.

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  2. This reminds of a place that used to be open near us here. It was called Miniature Village. It was part of a garden center owned by a company called Weall & Cullen. Sadly it has been closed many years now. My sons loved to go there in the summer to see the miniatures set out among miniature trees and such.

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