Photo trickery

Pretty much the opposite of what I look for in selecting photos for the magazine.  

I prefer a variety of shots, including many taken from "track level"--or slightly above or below track level--which tend to represent what a real person standing at or near the track would see.  "Aerial views" for creating on overview of a layout is fine, but for a detailed feature I prefer a good number of mid-range and close-up shots with good depth-of-field (where the subject is in sharp focus and objects in the foreground and background also appear to be in good focus).

Interesting, to say the least. It strikes me that the final effect depends more on playing with saturation and contrast than on tilt-shift effects. TS lenses, or perspective-control (PC) lenses that shift in a single plane, are used in architectural photography to reduce the convergence of tall buildings and the like. TS lenses are very expensive, PC somewhat less so. When I was active in photography I would always keep a 35mm perspective control lens in my bag when I was shooting in a city. The photos on the linked webpage are very cleverly done. It would be interesting to create a model scene like a real scene, manipulate the real scene to look more like a model, and then do a "which is which" pair. 

Now that gives great prospective.  There are a few in which it becomes hard to tell the modeling from the real.... I am going to study that technique.  I would image Allan wants the detail to show how the modeler was able to capture the scene.  But, image full size pictures, of your work, rendering nearly perfect lifelike pictures of a modeled railroad scene. 

Frankly, I prefer trying to make the model look like the real thing:

not the real thing to look like a model.  Here's the original shot:

Rusty

I like night shots

They looked like a bunch of badly focused images to me. No thanks.

Rusty, in that example he posted, really does a fine job of capturing the look I like in layout scenes.

I recognize full well that many folks can not achieve that level of realism, and in many cases that level is not even needed (nor are such advanced skills with Photoshop necessary), but that photo of his does lead one to ask "Is it real or a model?"

In my opinion, realistic model railroad photography should not draw undue attention to photographic technique. 

It is interesting.  I wish I were a better photographer, but that, and drywall, are two things I have given up every thinking I will be more that barely adequate at doing.