Whenever something that was once available to only a privileged few becomes available to the “masses”, the boundary between “average” and “exceptional” is always going to rise.
With affordable digital cameras to get decent indoor photos without flash, and the internet with free [or cheap] web site hosting, people no longer have to be master photographers or have media connections to make their work visible to a world-wide audience. And other technology advances, such as the use of static grass for scenery, has raised peoples’ expectations of how “real” a layout can be made to look. Nobody [not myself anyway] wants to pay money to see the same type of stuff in a magazine, that can be found free of charge on a random private web site with a google search.
I suggest everybody “focus” on Railphotog’s site to learn about photography of model railroads.
I first saw Bob’s site a few years ago, and learned how to improve my photos. I was never much of a photographer before. Since then I have had a handful of photos published in Model Railroader. Latest is in August MR Trackside Photos.
I know for myself the only thing that has held me from submitting my stuff has always been the photo standards, I dont have a camera anywhere near professional enough for the requirements listed. Let alone the time needed to set up the camera, lighting, filters, difussers (none of which I own) then the time afterword to adjust crop edit label record and send just makes the whole process seam very intimidating to begin with.
I have no doubt I could write enough material and make it interesting, but the time it takes to do professional level photography can be like a second job. If photography is a hobby and something you enjoy doing thats a real bonus, but if your like me and you just find the photo editing process tedious, thats a definete drawback.
And all this with no gaurentee its going to get published…[:|]
Maybe the process should be instead of sending the whole enchillada to MR, a sample package is sent, with not gigantic pixel images and a shorter description of the layout, that way MR can vette the potential contributors and select out the haves from the have nots that way. Once selected, they can then let those with publishable layouts or projects to go ahead and make the bigger effort for the professional level images and expanded writing, etc.
Not sure what you mean by “diffusers”, I don’t own any and have had a few of my articles and photos published.
Your last pargraph is what I suggested previously, and what magazines look for - send them your article idea and maybe a few photos to see if they have an interest.
I personally know several model railroaders with photogenic layouts and who can also make great photos, but they don’t really have an interest in doing anything for the magazines. It’s too much like work, especially since it would probably be years before they would see their material in print. Why spend countless hours preparing photos and an article and have to wait forever to see results?
I believe this is one reason that MR sends out (or used to) author/photographers to do many layout articles. That’s why you see the same bylines by a select few, they get paid to go to distant cities to do the articles. I assume they get paid when they’re finished, and probably don’t care a whole lot if it takes forever to see their work in print.
Maybe it would be a good idea to have different sets of standards for “Layout Tours” & How to articles. If I am paying for any kind of tour I want top quality.
If I’m interested in a new technique or how to build something. I only want the pictures & the writing clear enough so I can understand it. A picture of someone gluing something together doesn’t have to be museum quality.
Well when the Paper versions are ALL gone over to Electronic
Maybe just maybe my Point and Shoot camers will finally be good enough to take a picture as the Monitors don’t need such HIGH Quality cameras to provide an idea what my layout looks like!
Can’t wait!
It souldn’t be long as there are more and more on here expressing the exact same idea
It doesn’t have to be (Supposedly) Museum quality to express an idea!
If you are not up to speed on digital photography just contact your local photography club and have one of their people come by your layout and do the photos.
If you really want your article published then do whatever it takes to make it happen.
One other question I had is, if you take a photo at a club layout, I would assume it would be in good taste to warn them you submitted a photo to MR right :P. No suprises when they open the mag and see a pic of the layout in trackside photos.
I can’t see why this would be a good solution. People not in the hobby are not likely to have any idea how a model railroad should be photographed. And you would need to find someone who has portable lighting. Shooting a layout for publication can be quite time consuming, finding the scenes to shoot, settting up lights, taking shots from various angles, then moving the lights and doing it all over again. Quite a bit to ask someone out of the blue to do for you.
But who knows, there may be someone out there who could or would do it. If so, then there’s the question of who gets paid if the article is accepted?
I completely agree there’s nothing wrong with average. I’m pretty average myself as far as the hobby goes. And my own philosophy is to just do it. It’ll be good enough so long as you can stand to have it on the layout. Virtually everything I’ve ever built has flaws, some more than one. I accept that as part of the process. I’d rather have a dozen built kits on the layout than a dozen sitting on the shelf because I feared tackling them, even if that means I have to accept a dozen cars with issues that irritate me if I look closely.
On the other hand, magazines are about learning, in part. People know how to do average, and lots of articles are written about average things. What attracts great interest is how to improve on average.