Back in 2011 I had already had some media exposure with my Lego and action figure photographs and I figured it was time to resurrect my teenage idea of photographing scale model spaceships. I had taken a few photos and tried to build some models of my own in the early 1980’s but it didn’t go nowhere. Then again in the early 1990’s, still no go. I looked up what was available this time around and found the Finemolds 1/72nd scale Y-wing.
The Y-wing was at the time my favourite of the classic Star Wars spaceships, probably still is, and I’d never had one before in any form, except the one I built from Lego when I was a kid, so the choice was easy to make.
The scale modeling scene had changed since my youth and the availability of tools and materials was now so much better. One of these new things was the Tamiya ultra thin liquid cement. The minuscule plastic bits and bobs were easy to glue on to the model with it. Also the camera technology had changed. I now had my first DSLR camera and I knew a little bit about Photoshop. So, all this seemed like a perfect setup for what I was about to do.
I was so pleased with the Y-wing model, it turned out looking great. Furthermore, despite the small size it worked much better with the camera than I had hoped for. I made some tests and posted the first photograph of the model on Flickr. There was great potential in the idea, I thought.
As it turned out, I was right about the potential but not quite the way I had hoped for. Being new to the toyphotography scene, I was not that familiar with what was already out there. I was shocked to find Cédric Delsaux’s fantastic Dark Lens book. He had already cleaned the table with it and I’d had no idea of it even existing.
I value the originality of ideas and I wowed myself to not proceed any further with scale models because of Dark Lens. Really, this was such a disheartening moment because the last thing I wanted was to come across as a copycat.
But, you know how it is, days went by, I took some more photos of the tiny Y-wing and I loved it regardless of the circumstances. I changed my mind and ordered the 1/72 scale Finemolds Millennium Falcon while making even more photographs with the small Y-wing. I figured by making the models myself, customizing them with lighting and more I might be able to find a way to do this my way after all.
