Photographing A Town That Never Was – The Meta Picture (opens in new tab)

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...

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

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24796741@N05/

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.

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...

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

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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).

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

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

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

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

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

Robbie the Robot even makes an appearance!

The occasional selfies were funny :)

Wow! The photos are amazing! Two thumbs up!