Ocean Bay, Massachusetts-Rhode Island Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club

About a month or so ago while browsing one of the many automotive news websites I visit daily I came across a photo of a 51 Studebaker parked on the side of the road in this perfect little 1950s town. After looking at the photo quickly I thought this must be a movie set or something so I clicked on the link to read more about it and was surprised to find out that these where just diecast cars and scale models of buildings. After looking at some of the other photos I was really impressed and clicked on the link to the person’s Flickr site where I found hundreds more. I must have spent an hour looking through them never once noticing the photographer’s name. After I was finished I forwarded the link to my father to check out. A short time later my father called me and asked where I came across this Michael Paul Smith site, that’s pretty neat? Michael Paul Smith, WOW I guess I am embarrassed to say I never look at the name because i was too busy looking at the photos!

For those of you who don’t remember, Michael is an old friend of the club. Years ago when I originally did the newsletter, Michael was the person who used to do the great Studebaker illustrations that we used for the covers and still use from time to time today. It prompted me to try and get in touch with him to see if I could do a little write up on his work in the next Studegram, and he was thrilled to have his work in the Studgram again.

Michael has been collecting 1/24 scale diecast cars from companies like Danbury and Franklin Mint for 20 years and his collection has grown quite large so looking for something fun to do with his collection instead of just leaving them on shelves he started out recreating his boyhood memories of where he grew up in Pennsylvania. Using the model making skills that he learned when he worked for an architectural firm he has scratch-built a dozen or so scale-model buildings which he mixes and matches to recreate many different sets, all of which are constructed out of Gator board, plastics such as styrene and Sintra, and found objects.

What makes his dioramas so unique and believable is the way he incorporates real world background into the shots. He started out making pristine staged shots and over time he moved outdoors for more realistic photos where they evolved to look more like a snapshot of everyday life in America in the 30s, through the early 60s. In some of the shots you will see he has used water or baking soda for snow to get that cold wintery look. He calls this fictional place Elgin Park and it has been visited virtually over 20 million times during the past few months and has become somewhat of an internet phenomenon over that time. Just about every week I spot another write up on his work and in addition to all those blogs that he has been featured on, he has also been written up in the New York Times.

There is a lot of information out there recently on Michaels work and I encourage you to look into it if you would like to learn more about it; and make sure you check out his Flickr photostream page to see many more photos, along with descriptions on how he sets up some of his shots. Please click on the thumbnails below in our gallery to see more of Michael's work.

To view more images of Michael's work check out: Michael Paul Smith Photostream www.flickr.com/photos/24796741@N05/

Michael Paul Smith's Photo Gallery