Lightbox Diorama Photography

With the lightbox photographic diorama now complete I have taken a few photographs to test its use. As with the previous trials these have used a small extract of the free backscene given away last year with the Railway Modeller. Unlike the last time I have cut a fair amount away from the bottom to give a better horizon line. The hazing effect is purely from the lighting and the matt finish of the paper.

Having reviewed this and other photos I opted to take a further centimetre from the bottom of the backscene to lower it further, and this little adjustment actually made a visual difference to the next images. This is actually the first view I have taken of the railcar and the recently completed trailer.

3/4 images are possible in both directions, the backscene nicely fills the gap to the side where the back of the diorama runs out, the effect just being that the land behind drops away, perhaps for a footpath crossing. The pathway nicely breaks up the foreground of the view.

Side-on views are perhaps the easiest to disguise the size of the diorama, I'm considering alterative pieces of backscene to vary the view from time to time, I might even get away with a seascape...

One of the aims of this simple scheme was to be scale indifferent, and to allow either O9 or 009 stock to be photographed. With hindsight for this view the backscene should have been replaced with plain sky as the Lincolnshire Coast Light Railway had a much flatter horizon!

Work is underway on the next diorama, which is going to be something a little different.

Colin