Chris Nevard's Blog

Oh my!

 

I can see a whole range of Christmas Nevcards arriving soon.

 

Very different indeed.

Yohoho, Santa Claus is coming to town. Very Christmassy feel to that as the boss has said; it injects a nice touch of warmth into a cold scene and is rather attractive (even if it involves a 'strange' railway). Definitely worth the effort.

Very very very nice. This is everything that promotes correct editing of raw images to produce a serious piece of work... regardless of what purists say... I call this "art" using the most modern of media available today.

Your work has always inspired... today it takes my breath.

Thank you!

'Christmas at the summit!'

 

Love it, its certainly a new and very creative facet of the hobby, to those that dont like, may I suggest you get life or perhaps mind your own?

 

That really is the most incredible of images.

 

No idea why, but it reminds me of one of the Gasson or Adrian Vaughn books, in as much as you almost know where it is, who is in it and the signalman has a brew on to welcome you in the box!

Express meat or fish lamp codes - intereresting?

Photoshop sir? Why coudn't you ship the model to the Med., wait several months for the perfect sky and then take your little snap, like a proper photographer! Standards are definetely slipping these days!

 

Paul. (Comfy armchair this...)

Magnificent.

 

Mac.

Stunning just stunning photo ,well done Chris on a truly beautiful photo !.

All of the above, and it also brings out the trackwork and ballasting particularly well, which looks bl**dy good. Amazing what armchair modellers can dream up ;-)

Nice photo Chris.

 

Which layout is it? I don't remember seeing it. It may be the camera angle or it could be that I managed to miss an aisle at the show, which wouldn't be surprising.

Stunning - any chance of the same for my 2-8-2 pic?

Gosh, that is quite something and made me stop and really look! Lovely stuff Chris.

Thanks chaps!

The layout is O gauge and its name mentioned in the blog post. I is about 40ft x20ft. It's still under construction so definitely worth keeping an eye on for further outings. Many of the engines have DCC sound, bells and whistles etc.

 

I'll be photographing it properly next year under proper lighting for the popular press (without all the silly CGI because it will be about the layout, not what I can do with Photoshop).

 

Here's the original shot without all the tomfoolery...

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

 

And here's an evening version (which might be better?)

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

Brilliant work , keep it up Cris and ignore the anti photo shop brigade

when you can get shots like this .

Very nice especially when you see the original. Can't really see why Photoshop can't be seen as modelling too. Nice to see Polbrook there too I had a good look at your etched chairs while you were off somewhere and added them to the list of bits I must get for the quarry project.

I'm happy to go a little bonkers like this for personal work or maybe a specific commission for something wild and wacky, but for magazine shoots I'd never go this far, that style photography is more about representing the owner's layout, than what fiction I could create with the virtual darkroom.

 

I do use creative lighting (which is obviously done at the taking stage) to create effect though, with low specular light bringing out some wonderful texture (which works really well showcasing good track and hairy grass) and modelling often lost by simply flooding a layout with light from all angles. Photography is about light.

 

Smoke effects are always optional (I do a set with and without) with such; curiously though, most layout owners want it! I let the editorial team and layout owners decide whether to use the smoke or non-smoke versions.

 

When I shoot Kimble, I'm tempted to make the most of all the platform and building lights, and purely use my studio lighting at a low output level to replicate moonlight to give an effect similar to here, but in camera. I'll need to drop a background in to hide the shoot location walls and ceiling, but it will be a simple graduated blue which will not draw attention away from the modelling. I love photographing O gauge, especially with a subject as good as this.

 

Here is moonlight created traditionally on the Crawley Model Railway Club's Groenen Creek with lighting - such and approach would suit Kimble

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nevardmedia/6399352397/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Thanks for posting the unmodified picture Chris - I've been having a look at this plus a few other pics of Kimble. I think your modified picture is a good demonstration of what can be done with a camera and either a backdrop or Photoshop to make a layout look really good.

 

Apart from the obvious benefit of removing the NEC roof and the punters in the background, I find it remarkable how much of a sense of 'space' is conveyed by your photo. I just don't get the same sense from any other pictures of the layout. In fact I struggled initially to relate the two together - your picture makes my brain think that the signal box is further from the bridge than it really is and the station is not noticeable, giving the impression of a wide-open stretch of main line. Put another way... I'm sure now that I did see Kimble at the show, but I didn't recognise your picture as being the same layout.

 

Don't get me wrong - this is not a criticism of clever camera work or of the layout, nor is it (hopefully) simpering fan mail. I'd just like to be able to improve my own efforts with the camera. I think there is a lot in the unmodified shot (choice of angle, focus etc) that is critical to the success of the modified picture - i.e. Photoshop is not the whole story.

 

Keep up the good work and feel free to tell us more about how it's done.

 

Regards, Andy

I do use creative lighting (which is obviously done at the taking stage) to create effect though, with low specular light bringing out some wonderful texture (which works really well showcasing good track and hairy grass) and modelling often lost by simply flooding a layout with light from all angles.

Interesting. Does specular light in this case mean light reflected from an off-scene source, or light reflected directly in the item you are photographing?

Specular is a sharp, direct light source - like the sun or in my case artificial means (because in the UK it normally rains and most layouts are too big to take outside). It's important to only have one dominant source of light as a rule, it's only on Star Trek that there are two or maybe three suns. The fill should be soft/diffuse so as not to create a competing sharp shadows.

 

This is a complete contrast to an overcast day when the whole sky illuminates a scene evenly making an almost shadowless look, to create that you'll want bounced light off a large area (ceiling is good). There are no rules as to what works, but when trying to photograph a model railway to look like the real thing, the real world is a good example to copy.