Every time I see an article featured in MR, I marvel over the quality of photography. I find it hard to believe that there are so many professional photographers out there who just happen to be model railroaders. Whenever I see “photos by author” it makes me wonder if they really did thier own work.
So my question is this:
Does MR hire a photo crew to go out and shoot featured layouts, or does the magazine expect the author / layout owner to submit his own?
If I read the credits correctly, many of them are takem by semi pros who have learned the trade. There have been a couple of threads on the fine points of taking mag quaility pics. A good camera and study seem to be the starting place. I have neither, so I leave it to you to get pics of your layout on the pages. Good luck. Until then, I enjoy what you send here and have noticed considerable imporment.
Alot of the photos are taken by Lou Sassi, and uh…I can’t think of his name right know. But some of the people do take they’re own.
The other gentleman often used by MR to photograph layouts is Paul Dolkos.
However, for most of my time in the hobby modelers were indeed expected to be pretty good model photographers as well as layout builders. It was just as much a required skill as kitbashing if you ever wanted to see your efforts in print. Sadly, as reflected by the fact that MR typically uses their own select photographers, it’s another essential hobby skill that today’s modelers have lost…or just failed to ever learn. With the better (medium priced) digital cameras available today, there really is no excuse for a modeler not to be able to get excellent, realistic pictures of his layout that are worthy of any magazine.
CNJ831
I took my own photos for my track ballasting article in the Realistic Layouts special issue. Of course, I took the cover shot, too.
For a larger image, click here.
If you can take decent photos, MR is happy to use them – and pay you for them, too!
Nothing like a hobby that can help pay its own way now and then. [swg]
Yes and no. I am sure that MR has or retains some professional/contract photographers but they do rely upon the author of articles to do their own photography. Just as authors can fall in love with their own prose - we are cautioned against that in any creative writing class - so also film shooters can fall in love with their own photography - I know a guy that distributed about ten thousand copies - that’s an exageration, of course - of a photo of American Freedom Train in 1976 and the photo is obviously out of focus and he cancelled his subscription to Railfan magazine when they did not print it. The point of this is, sometimes the author’s photgraphy just doesn’t measure up to the magazines standards but the quality of the story warrants sending a professional photographer to “reshoot” the story.
The process gets a little complicated and I’m not sure I can quite remember everything but photos in magazines are exposed through contact prints and what are called “color seps” (for “seperations”)and not onto photo paper. The “seps” are extracted from dyed negatives; the next time you see a photo in a magazine ad for Canon cameras - they are the masters - don’t grit your teeth and say "my photos don’t ever come out looking like that’ and you’ll be right - they don’t but then theirs don’t carry the phrase "Processed by Wal-Mart’ on it either. Can you get that quality print; you betch’m Little Beaver but you’re going to pay for it because it takes time. Thirty years ago I paid over thirty dollars for “professional” processing on a roll of slides - and never sold a one of them - but it was worth the try.
If you want to increase your chances of selling your photos, whether “archive” photos such as you find in the photo section of Trains magazine or photos accompanying an article on “Converting a Sukiyaki Models Big Boy Into a Sneaky Falls and Western 0-4-0T switcher”, use professional film and have it hand-processed at a photo lab. Wal-Mart may say that they change their ch
I’ve been a long time amateur photographer. I was a teenage model railroader but didn’t have a decent camera to take photos of my trains at that time. When I got out of the hobby after high school, I picked up photography as a hobby. Some time later I thought about taking photos of model railroads to submit to the magazines. I borrowed a friend’s HO scale diorama and started there. This progressed along to making a shelf layout and several pairs of HO scale modules, which I was able to photograph.
I had my own black and white darkroom, and submitted a few photos to the magazines which they eventually used. I was hooked! From then on I did a lot of my modeling with the idea of submitting articles in mind. It takes effort and foresight to do this when scratchbuilding models - in progress photos need to be taken regularly, you cannot do them later when the model is done!
I had decent photo gear and sufficient knowledge to be able to prepare material for the magazines, and have done so for about 25 years now. My modeling has slowed down in the past several years, so I don’t have many subjects to use for articles. But I’m still at it!
I’ve been lucky over the years, with over 800 of my model photos being used in the most of the hobby magazines, including 27 cover photos. I’ve done layout tours of several friends’ layouts too - it’s a lot of work!. It has been rewarding in many ways, including financially, as I probably have made more money in the hobby than I have spent.
I notice MR seems to rely more these days on their assigned photographers Lou Sassi and Paul Dolkos for much of their work, which is a pity because it leaves out the amateurs who have provided much of the material over the years.
A previous poster has suggested using the best film for submissions; I suggest digital is now the way to go. I’ve sold off all of my Canon film cameras and use digital exclusively these days. I’ve had digital photos used in my article
Having been in photography, as both a professional (weddings, portraits etc) and advanced amature, I’ve always wondered about the equipment the magazine uses. The key elements they would have to conquer in model photography is depth of field and color balance. Depth of field is that area in a picture that is in ‘acceptable’ focus and color balance is kinda self explanatory. The magazine does a great job with both. I’ve been tempted to write and ask what type camera and lens combination they prefer for ‘most’ of the shots they use.
I certainly agree that with the todays mid range digital cameras anyone should be able to shoot good photos of their railroad.
Jarrell
I don’t know what others use, but when I shot mostly slides and black and white for my magazine submissions, I used my Canon 28mm lens at f/22 for most of my photos, with a Canon 50mm lens once in a while. As for color balance, I used 500 watt white photoflood bulbs and Kodak Ektachrome 64T film with great results.
I’ve had quite a few shots used that were taken with my Vivittar 28mm lens with a home made pinhole aperture for almost limitless depth of field. Not quite as sharp as the Canon 28mm lens, but good enough for four or five of my cover shots.
I too have done wedding photos and other social events over the years. At work I was the one always taking photos because everyone knew that’s what I did. It was never a part of my official duites, but I did get to take photos all over the place and in many differrent situations - on ships, small boats, in helicopters, in buckets lifted by cranes, undeneath ships in drydock, on top of lighthouses, etc. I retired five years ago from the Canadian Coast Guard.
I believe all of these experiences as well as all of the photos that I’ve taken of our family, as a race track photographer at local and national events, etc. have all added to my photographic skills. While I’ve not been a “professional” photographer, I’ve probably had as many photographic experiences as many pros have had!
Bob Boudreau
My website on digftal photography for the model railroader:
http://arailfan.googlepages.com/
For what it maybe worth, when I was a regular contributor to MR’s Trackside Photos a decade or so ago and for my many entries in NMRA photo contests, I can report employing a rather unusual selection of lenses in conjunction with my Pentax K-1000 (film) camera body.
The lenses I employed for model photography initially included 28mm WA and 50mm examples, with pinhole apertures I inserted in the system (giving f ratios of f/60 and f/75 respectively). The former lens had a virtually unlimited depth-of-field. I later often ultilized a 19mm extreme WA lens attached to a 1.5x telextender. When the aperture was closed down to f/16-f/22, this lens provided results similar to the 28mm pinhole lens but the exposures were significantly shorter.
I’ve recently gone digital, again with a mid to high-end Pentax camera. But am really not as happy with the results so far as I was with what I got with the film camera…although it is nice to have the images available immediately. The Pentax digital shoots at f/37, so it’s fairly close to a pinhole lens system and gives nice diorama and extreme close-up layout shots.
CNJ831