Wright writes.....

[Mallard60022]

The rodding to the Box looks superb.

Phil

[Clive Mortimore]

Hello Tony

 

I hope Mo is feeling a bit better today.

 

Cooking is easy everything is 20 minutes (or multiples or division of), once the water is boiling spuds take 20 minutes, as do other veggies, but not tin peas or baked beans they take 10 or so minutes and don't boil (1/2 of 20) . Oven chips, 20 to 25 minutes, frozen oven ready pie, 40 minutes (2x 20), roast chicken 20 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes over. And the roastie taters to go with the chicken 40 minutes. Takeaway Chinese meal delivered to your door "It will be there  in 40 minutes" (2x 20).

 

Have you mastered the dishwasher? I have found it doesn't magically load and unload itself.

 

I hope my MTK style cooking instructions will help you prepare a meal for your poorly wife.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Clive Mortimore

[gr.king]

Tony,

 

I understand that the following phrase appears in a rare surviving copy of a book of recipes from the Tudor period, when it was deemed perfectly adequate: Cook until done.

 

I suppose it's a bit like writing kit instructions really. Either every trivial procedure has to be explained or a level of knowledge has to be assumed on the part of the reader.

 

When I was 14, a friend of mine who regularly had to sort his own meals out rather than being pampered by his mother as I was, explained the essentials of cooking to me as "stick it in a pan and boil it". He looked distinctly well-fed.

 

I missed the news of what was ailing Mo, but I send my best wishes.

Edited January 26, 2019 by gr.king

[Killybegs]

 

 

Cooking is easy everything is 20 minutes (or multiples or division of), once the water is boiling spuds take 20 minutes, as do other veggies

 

 

Oh dear, over cooked veggies!

[Clive Mortimore]

Oh dear, over cooked veggies!

Your not one of these trendies like my wife who thinks that veggies should be shown the boiling water and they are cooked. I don't like raw food.

[Killybegs]

Your not one of these trendies like my wife who thinks that veggies should be shown the boiling water and they are cooked. I don't like raw food.

 

Not quite, but almost!

[Richard E]

Your not one of these trendies like my wife who thinks that veggies should be shown the boiling water and they are cooked. I don't like raw food.

there is nothing worse than overcooked veggies. I tend to work on 10 minutes max when boiling sprouts or carrots although the latter can need longer depending on how they are cut.

[Tony Wright]

If you are going black and white ... a couple of thoughts

 

Might you consider rigging up a directional light source to produce some shadows? Might give a even more atmosphere?

 

I think the shots might benefit from a little more work on the sky ... even if only a darkening towards the top to give a feel of distance.

 

Finally, it might be fun to play around a little with graining .. just to add a little noise.

 

Excellent shots though 

I don't think I'll be going entirely B&W Tim,

 

For most of my photographing of models, it's been my quest to 'soften' shadows. Obviously not eliminate them, because that would be unnatural, but to lighten areas to pick out detail. Often, particularly on colour transparency stock, taking a picture of the real thing on a bright sunny day (with the sun behind your left or right shoulder) would result in inky shadows below, say, the footplate. 

 

What I try to replicate is a bright-ish, but slightly overcast day, where the sun is 'illuminating' the scene, but not producing harsh shadows. LB's room is very evenly-lit with many white light tubes, so I use that as my ambient lighting, and pick out details with pulses of fill-in flash from the trusty Metz. These don't affect the overall exposure times, but just to give me detail in the shadows. 

 

I think model railway photography has come on leaps and bounds, especially with digital developments. Tiny cameras now give excellent, publication quality results (though I cannot get on with them personally) and the process of 'stacking' has allowed almost infinite depth of field to be achieved (though, again, I have no use for the process, preferring - more naturally? - optics to give me my depth of field). 

 

I just do things 'my way', in a similar 'my way' fashion I build locos/stock and quantify (and qualify?) what I feel happy about with in my model-making. 

 

As an aside, chatting to Andy York the other day, where Little Bytham was mentioned, he suggested (quite rightly) that, from head-on angles in photographs, the trackwork would look better if it were in EM, or (even better) P4. He's quite right, and, as I've mentioned, had I adopted EM all those years ago I might well be a 'happier' modeller now. As for P4 (his comment was tongue in cheek), though it might have looked 'wonderful', would it have 'worked' to my satisfaction and would I (even with help) have been able to build LB in a normal mortal's lifetime in the most-accurate gauge and within the same footprint? The answer is a most-emphatic 'No'! 

 

I've been delighted with the responses to LB in the latest issue of BRM. Many thanks for all the kind comments. Some years ago, Howard Smith, on first seeing it (still with much to be done on it), called it 'average'. He's dead right - that's what it is in the grand scheme of things, and it's the 'average' standard of the group which built it. Norman Solomon builds trackwork in both S7 and P4, so that would take that above average compared with his work on LB in OO. Tony Geary's current work in O Gauge is to a far higher standard than some of his older OO gauge stuff on LB - which means it's now 'below average' compared with what his current standard is. Certainly, the 40 year old locos and stock I've built which still run on LB are not to the latest standards, especially with regard to the painting - hence the 'average' description, though both Ian Rathbone's and Geoff Haynes' painting is in the 'above average' class.  As is much of the architectural modelling, but, with the greatest of respect to the builders, it is not in the Peter Leyland or Geoff Taylor class. 

 

What does all this waffle show? That a team of like-minded individuals, working to their 'normal' standards and all working towards the same objective can produce an OO layout which sits happily in the middle of the range of standards in this hobby? I hope so. At least it proves that building a largish layout (in a decade) is possible, though, rather like in the recent TV series, much had been completed beforehand - years beforehand! 

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

 

Edited to include the following.............. 

 

Oh, and thanks for all the kind thoughts regarding Mo. She's improving, and I've passed on your well-wishes.

 

I'm now off the 'cook' some soup, and serve it in a bowl. Not, as someone suggested on here, in part of my digestive system! 

Edited January 26, 2019 by Tony Wright

[Anglian]

Very best wishes to Mo for continued recovery.

A kitchen cheat is to buy a ready roasted chicken then using remains to make fabulous chicken soup with added veggies of course. It almost matches your model making doctrine.

With your fabulous black and white images pushing the blacks using 'levels' (Command L) in Photoshop will instantly make them even more redolent of the era the layout is set in. I know you don't want (or need) to become a Photoshop wizard but this simple operation might give you further artistic satisfaction.

[Chamby]

Well I’m going to speak up against the flow of conversation here... as I much prefer your photographs in colour, Tony.

 

Black and white has its place, from a historical perspective and for some, there’s an element of nostalgia no doubt. The prototype however existed in full colour and people saw and lived with it every day in full colour. Why swop Apple green, Brunswick green, Malachite, Garter Blue, Crimson lake, glorious teak, etc etc... for something where they all look, well, just a similar grey! Why lose subtle shades of weathering and discolouration that show the true character of the railways, subtle shades of rust and soot and ash overlaying those glorious colours, all lost in the greyness of a wholly artificial medium?

 

Just saying!

 

Phil

[jamie92208]

I also like black and white photos but colour on old objects can be a real eye opener.  The horse drawn tram that I worked on was obviously never photographed in colour and I automatically assumed that it was a bit dark and dingy, running on the grimy street of Leeds in 1900. This shows one from the same class at the Chapletown terminus

We had samples of the original livery and obviously sourced the exact shades of paint for the restoration but I was still amazed at just how bright and colourful it was.

 

You do tend to think of history in Black and White and as with programmes like the WW1 one mentioned above it is a shock to see history in colour.

 

Jamie

[CF MRC]

Whilst on the topic of photos, my biggest gripe with most of the magazines, is that they promote the over-close view of a sometimes indifferent model with every blemish in perfect focus over a great distance. The images are usually grossly and garishly overcoloured, as that is easily achieved with digital images, therefore seldom recalling the eras that they are trying to portray. MRJ usually gets it right.

 

Moan over.

Tim

Edited January 26, 2019 by CF MRC

[Clive Mortimore]

Whilst on the topic of photos, my biggest gripe with most of the magazines, is that they promote the over-close view of a sometimes indifferent model with every blemish in perfect focus over a great distance. The images are usually grossly and garishly overcoloured, as that is easily achieved with digital images, therefore seldom recalling the eras that they are trying to portray. MRJ usually gets it right.

 

Moan over.

Tim

I fully agree Tim. If my lawn looked as green and bright as some of the embankments and cuttings in model railway magazines I would consider myself very lucky. Even in the days when earthworks were cut back they still had a very rough look about them and appeared a darker shade than the freshly cut hay field behind them.

[westerner]

I can't agree more Tim. In these days of digital photography it is very easy to tone down over bright images, just reduce the saturation a tad normally does it.

[john new]

Whilst on the topic of photos, my biggest gripe with most of the magazines, is that they promote the over-close view of a sometimes indifferent model with every blemish in perfect focus over a great distance. The images are usually grossly and garishly overcoloured, as that is easily achieved with digital images, therefore seldom recalling the eras that they are trying to portray. MRJ usually gets it right.

 

Moan over.

Tim

 

I think it is symptomatic of the current scene  but is not anything new with regard to modelling, and reflects the modern desire across the board for vivid colour in illustrations and photographs. Exhibition layouts, for example, do need to be lit as so many halls are on the dark side with their background lighting, but most layouts are lit these days to overly bright levels. However, as I say, this is nothing new. I quote this from E F Carter's 1950 book (Model Railway Encyclopaedia, p207) "...Pristine newness is very exceptional in real railway practice, but seems to be very prevalent in models,...."  

 

Much of the specifics of what is in volumes like this one from the past is now obsolete, things have moved on/proprietary suppliers are completely different, but many of the general principles are as valid today as they were then; modern modellers would still do well to read these books for the bits that are timeless, and in particular pages 203-7 covering scenery.

Edited January 27, 2019 by john new

[Tony Wright]

Very best wishes to Mo for continued recovery.

 

A kitchen cheat is to buy a ready roasted chicken then using remains to make fabulous chicken soup with added veggies of course. It almost matches your model making doctrine.

 

With your fabulous black and white images pushing the blacks using 'levels' (Command L) in Photoshop will instantly make them even more redolent of the era the layout is set in. I know you don't want (or need) to become a Photoshop wizard but this simple operation might give you further artistic satisfaction.

I tend to do very little 'darkroom' work on my pictures, Tim, preferring (with luck) to get the image 'right' in the camera. 

 

When I used film for my real life photography, I used either colour transparency or B&W - Fuji and Ilford respectively. The B&W gave more latitude, inasmuch as I could dodge and burn in the darkroom, but I still tried to get everything 'right' in the exposure at source.

 

I agree with what others have said (and have said before) about some model railway images of late. Some are so over-processed as to look the exact opposite of their being natural. Lurid colours burst out of pages, often, as Tim Watson has observed, highlighting the poor quality of some models. This is where my ambivalence towards my own model railway photography occurs - I'm all for razor-sharp imagery, showing things exactly as they are, but I'd like to think that it could be tinged with 'sensitivity'; don't get within 'sniffing' distance, for instance. 

 

Using the common metaphor, the genie is out of the bottle now, and not all progress is entirely beneficial. From my own personal perspective, in the past (shooting on medium format transparency) I used to be very careful with each image (composing it upside down on a squared screen at the camera's rear before clipping on the dark slide). I'd take no more than three different shots of each scene, each one consisting of at least five exposures on each frame, painting with light so to speak - a leaf shutter, not linked to the film's moving-on mechanism allows this.The best would be for publication, the second best for my own records and the dud one for the layout owner. If a maximum of a dozen different images was required, I'd take a dozen, ensuring all were of use. There was a discipline to that. Now, I'll take dozens, often moving the camera just a twitch and a bit in each scene. Such an approach can be a bit slipshod, but digital imagery has made it so much easier - and less expensive. 

 

I still use a screen to compose my images - the full frame one at the backs of the cameras I now use - a Nikon D3 and a Nikon Df with 'specialist' Nikon lenses. Easier? Of course, but a hefty medium format camera with movements certainly kept me fit!

 

Regards,

 

Tony. 

[grahame]

If my lawn looked as green and bright as some of the embankments and cuttings in model railway magazines I would consider myself very lucky. 

 

Ah, but is that because that is how they have been modelled and has therefore been accurately captured and reproduced, or because the contrast and colour has been pushed in publication? Perhaps modelling doesn't always reflect real life accurately and more observation of the real thing is required.

 

Or maybe it is because your lawn is very poorly nourished and neglected (like mine) that any comparison will be always look extreme? 

 

G

Edited January 26, 2019 by grahame

[CF MRC]

Could someone get rid of this lawn for me?

 

Tim

[robertcwp]

I ceased buying model railway magazines regularly several years ago. I bought one recently and thought the colours looked awful. Much too garish. I agree with earlier comments that MRJ does colour very well.

[APOLLO]

Very best wishes to Mo for continued recovery.

 

A kitchen cheat is to buy a ready roasted chicken then using remains to make fabulous chicken soup with added veggies of course. It almost matches your model making doctrine.

 

Perhaps a roasted duck may be more appropriate - didn't Mallard roast her centre bearings around Little Bytham !!!

 

By the way I like both colour and B&W photos. My best wishes also to Mo.

 

Brit15

[Suddaby]

Hi,

A kitchen cheat is to buy a ready roasted chicken then using remains to make fabulous chicken soup with added veggies of course. It almost matches your model making doctrine.

 

I presume that makes the soup Modified r-t-r then??

 

Hope Mo soon gets better Tony, we don't want you wasting away, and I suppose there is a certain element of self-preservation in getting you out of the kitchen quickly!

 

Kevin

[Clive Mortimore]

Ah, but is that because that is how they have been modelled and has therefore been accurately captured and reproduced, or because the contrast and colour has been pushed in publication? Perhaps modelling doesn't always reflect real life accurately and more observation of the real thing is required.

 

Or maybe it is because your lawn is very poorly nourished and neglected (like mine) that any comparison will be always look extreme? 

 

G

Hi Grahame

 

Our lawn is so big we need a couple of ride on lawn mowers.

[stewartingram]

Re: Soups

I am surprised at a man of your abilities relying on 'RTH' (ready-to-heat) soups, when it is so easy to make one's own!

Using basic raw materials (onion, potato, tomatoes, some chopped tomatoes if in the stock cupboard, seasoning to taste ( I'm in a tarragon phase) I always make up a big pan, eat one portion, with wholemeal bread of course, and freeze the remainder in portion-sized containers. Then you can use your newly acquired microwave skills to heat when required.

 

Even without an Isinglass drawing I'm sure you could manage that!

 

Now I must make leek, potato and bacon soup today, to use up ingredients, after doing some work on a nice simple LMS cattle wagon.

Pigs ( for bacon) can be transported in one of those!

 

Further (simple) instructions can be supplied if required.

 

 

NB I'm sure you must know this, but please do not put a can, or anything metallic, in the microwave.

I know why Tony can't manage it.... no soldering involved!

 

Stewart

[stewartingram]

 

That WD on the embankment is so evocative of the times I was approaching the railway. Then a train goes by, just too far away to read the number….how many times did that happen?

 

Stewart

Edited January 27, 2019 by stewartingram

[Killybegs]

I think some modern digital cameras produce over bright colours as a matter of course. I often find myself having to tone them down a little. Still, you can't beat the odd black and white.