
Photographing A Town That Never Was – The Meta Picture - bandris
http://themetapicture.com/photographing-a-town-that-never-was/
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WildUtah
Beautiful pictures. They're even more impressive once you see the illusion.
Even the fake greenery and curb and gutter seams are still hard to pick out
even when you know they're there. And the lighting is excellent.

But the look -- aside from car styling -- isn't a matter of charm and
innocence. It's a way of life that has been outlawed in America.

The mix of residential and commercial land use is illegal in almost all
American communities, especially at the scale pictured. A few big cities still
permit residential over commercial but whatever is left in most of America is
grandfathered. If it's taken down, you can't rebuild it. In fact, my whole
neighborhood is like that; if an earthquake hit, not one 1920s American
railroad suburb bungalow on my block would meet zoning to be rebuilt.

Also, almost none of those commercial establishments has parking in front and
surrounding it. The minimum requirements in almost all of America is about
double as much space for parking as for all building interior space. Floor
area ratios and landscape buffers usually require even more space around
parking lots because they're so ugly. Today, even the shots with parking
wouldn't have nearly enough and almost all the commercial buildings would be
illegal. I don't see any of the residential buildings with the 2-3 independent
parking spots usually required, either. Most of them -- for the sake of charm
-- don't have any off street parking. Also, driveways usually can't abut the
property line, so the garage has to dominate the front of the house, creating
a snout house effect and eliminating the friendly front porches.

Part of the appeal of these scenes is evoking an America that has been
outlawed in pursuit of faster roads and free parking. The grace and community
of neighborhoods, the diversity of age and social class, and affordability
have been part of the cost. Certainly this is not the first time reversing
those mistakes has made a scene prettier. [0]

[0][http://www.humantransit.org/2013/05/how-sim-city-
greenwashes...](http://www.humantransit.org/2013/05/how-sim-city-greenwashes-
parking.html)

~~~
SixSigma
What interests me about this is the difference between the parking situation
in the US and Europe. We don't have enough space for the kind of parking
regulations the US requires. I know urban supermarkets that have _no_ parking
whatsoever.

And then I think of Vietnam. 92 million people, 70 million scooters. 2-300%
tax on cars. The Vietnese I know have a desire to buy a car but they don't
seem to think of where they will park it. Imagine if everyone here suddenly
had a car :

[http://www.panoramio.com/photo/85662646](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/85662646)

~~~
jedrek
What's awful about where in live in Poland is that people don't care that they
don't have a place to park. They second they buy a car, they feel they are
entitled to get a parking space. Illegal parking is a massive problem here and
the only place I've seen it worse was in Rome.

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batoure
I highly suggest going straight to his flicker feed its way better

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/24796741@N05/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/24796741@N05/)

~~~
mxfh
Thanks for the flickr page. Michael Paul Smith also has a proper Homepage:
[http://www.visitelginpark.com/](http://www.visitelginpark.com/)

Was even featured in NYTimes in 2010:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/automobiles/collectibles/1...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/automobiles/collectibles/14SCALE.html)

Also I feel quit uncomfortable about the OP linking to this, arguably not as
annoying as others, meme aggregator page. Anything that categorizes this under
_funny, images, photos_ doesn't really care about the content, other than
getting inbound links.

~~~
batoure
yeah the link baiting was why i went out looking for and posted the flickr
page

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Crito
I am impressed that the effect holds up even after I read that the pictures
were of models. Often when you learn the 'trick' to something like this the
illusion vanishes, but with these pictures that doesn't seem to really happen.
The road surfaces seem an bit uniform (though the odd oil slick or damp spot
helps a lot) but otherwise these seem to be solidly past the uncanny valley
for me.

~~~
whyenot
Unfortunately, for me, I noticed that none of the cars (apparently) driving on
the road had any people in them. It really sticks out to me, where are the
people? I love his work, though, but it's like looking at pictures of that
town near Chernobyl where all the people suddenly left, leaving all their
belongings behind.

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callmeed
Conversely you can make a real scene look miniature by using a tilt-shift lens
(I used to use the Canon 45mm). Vincent Laforet's are some of my favorites:
[http://agonistica.com/tilt-shift-photography-by-vincent-
lafo...](http://agonistica.com/tilt-shift-photography-by-vincent-laforet/)

(I think what Michael Paul Smith does is much more impressive)

~~~
devb
It's funny that current TS/PC lenses cost upwards of $2000, but Michael Paul
Smith stated that he has to use a cheap Canon Powershot because the cheap lens
obscures the details enough to make them believable and the tiny aperture
keeps the "real" background enough in focus to keep the scale believable.

~~~
shotwell
A $2000 tilt-shift or perspective control lens would be inexpensive according
to some architectural, or otherwise technical, photographers.

~~~
devb
Sure, you can spend as much as you can possibly imagine on some equipment.
Linhof, Cambo, Leaf. Those are more business investments for the majority of
people who buy them, in a sense.

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keyle
While most articles on HN are about the riches and the way to the riches...
This man lives in a 3 rooms apartment and does magic with his hands.

That's a truly enjoyable link.

Look at his face in the selfies, he looks happier than most!

~~~
noonespecial
I envy him. Not like I envy rich people where I wish I could be myself in
their situation. I actually wish I could _be_ him.

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Theodores
These pictures are fantastic as far as accomplishment is concerned, it seems
that in models it is the same as 3D in that it is the lighting that makes
things 'real'. That is not to overlook the model making it is just that
lighting, including shadows, is what matters rather than detail to make a
scene convincing.

I like people in a scene and I would like to see what could be done in this
aspect, to 'comp' people dressed in period attire on the streets and behind
those windscreens. As soon as you have people you have a story rather than a
mere scene. Lighting matters again and one could take three pictures - the
full picture with foreground set, picture minus the foreground set, picture
minus foreground set and pedestrians. Pop the layers into Photoshop and, a few
layer mask edits later a full scene with people in it.

I must say that a million plus likes on Facebook is extremely impressive.

~~~
anigbrowl
Matching the angles and lighting is extremely time-consuming, unfortunately.
It's doable of course, but very difficult and I get the impression that this
gentleman's goal is not to spend more time in front of the computer, otherwise
he could achieve the same results with ray tracing and various image
composition tools.

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pg
The cars are too clean. The pictures would look even more realistic if he
sprayed them with dust.

~~~
Crito
The way I see it is that he has convincingly portrayed staged photographs of
real show cars. In other words it looks like somebody took some nice cars and
cleaned them up really nice to be photographed.

Weathering definitely is a great way to add to the realism though. Adam Savage
(mythbusters guy) has some great videos on Tested of using various weathering
techniques to make props look incredibly convincing:
[http://www.tested.com/art/makers/453823-one-day-builds-
adam-...](http://www.tested.com/art/makers/453823-one-day-builds-adam-savage-
demonstrates-weathering-tricks/)

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yeukhon
It's amazing how before I saw the miniature models my brain (pattern
recognition) skipped the full detail. Once I saw the models I started to
notice how wheels were perfect, the houses started to look a little unreal.
Also, filter does disguise flaws.

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melvinmt
Ah, this reminds me of Marwencol, albeit slightly less disturbing.

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ido
Very impressive photos! Although I must say that other than the old cars it
just looks like a fairly boring suburb to me (not american, maybe that's part
of the reason).

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agumonkey
When I was into 3d modeling/rendering I struggled to make anything look real.
This guy could write books about lighting.

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aryehhoffman
One of the most fabulous things I've seen for a long time. Really amazing!

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D9u
To me the images are reminiscent of old _Godzilla_ movies, etc...

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pizza
i have somewhat of a curious attraction to deceit -- this is awesome

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devsatish
Awesome. I want to take a stroll in that town/bygone era.

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chunger
Robbie the Robot even makes an appearance!

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mandelbulb
The occasional selfies were funny :)

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coldcode
Hollywood has been doing this forever. It's pretty well done but without any
people it's strangely unsatisfying.

~~~
afreak
Sort of it makes me think of a potemkin village except it is not. I think the
lack of natural items in his shots minus what is in the background is what
helps his images come off as inexplicably real.

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kimonos
Wow! The photos are amazing! Two thumbs up!

