If you’re anything like me, you love to look at all of those wonderful photos in the magazines. I just can’t get enough of them! When one of the magazines arrives, the first thing I always do is flip through it and check out the shots. When looking at these photos, I’m always thinking: How real can a layout look?

You might have been thinking how much fun it would be to take photos of your layout, but think it’s not yet finished enough. Well, that just might not be the case. You don’t need a great big completed layout to take some nice photos, just an area that is somewhat finished. Come on along and let me give you a tour around my layout expansion and I’ll show you what I mean.

You might call my expansion the “never ending project” as it just never seems to get finished. OK, I don’t slave away on it like a job, but I do spend a great deal of time with it. I decided to see how “finished” it would need to be before I could take photos that would look nice. To try this experiment, all I did was set some loose buildings that I have built in the past around the layout in different areas. I then added all the “other stuff” (trucks, trains, and things) to round out the scene.

The real trick for taking good photos of a “not yet complete” layout is to get in close. Concentrate on what IS finished, and down play what is not. When taking these photos, I took LOTS of shots. I use a digital camera, so I can take as many photos as I like. I figure out a possible shot and take it. I then move the lighting and loose stuff around and take another photo. And then I do it again and again. In fact, I usually figure that out of every 40 or so shots, I keep only one of them. (Boy am I ever glad for digital cameras!)

There are a few rules to remember, like never shoot a shot from an “overhead” perspective. Very rarely do those photos look real. And you also need to think about weather the scene is possible in real life. I need to remind my self from time to time that just because I can do it on the layout does NOT mean it would have happened in the real world. Did you catch my mistake in one of these photos? Have a look!

If you look carefully, you’ll see a Florida East Coast switcher working a mid-western farm scene. Could this have ever happened in real life??? Hummmmm…… I don’t think so, but I liked the color combination. I could make up a story about the switcher is on lease to a small mid-western short line for the harvest season. Or I could have just as easily used a different loco. Or I could just enjoy this shot for the nice colors.