Need some photo backdrop help

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm working on some backdrops for my chemical plant TTRAK module and need some help.

See, the plant I'm using for my inspiration USED to look like this:









But today it looks like this: https://goo.gl/maps/DuYCnCF4NR5862Zk6

So getting some modern photography that suits my needs will be hard.

Do any of you know where I could find a spot that looks similar that I can either find on Google Streetview or in person?

[wm3798]

Okay, so they're grain bins, but they look sort of tanky, and the brick building is cool beans, too.
They're along the rail trail in Easton (former Oxford Branch, PRR) so they're from the right era at least!

More where they came from with different angles if you need them.
Lee

[wm3798]

Somewhere I have shots taken at that chemical plant in Chestertown Brian @RockGp40 took me along to...  I'll have to do some digging.

Lee

[DeltaBravo]

Solvay Chemical plant at
3440 Fairfield Rd
Baltimore, MD 21226  You drive by and take a few photos. There is also a WR Grace plant on the other side of the river.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Those are both great options. Lee, can you go scout that out for me?

[Lemosteam]

Google map through the downtown Detroit area.  I pass through there daily and i can maybe take some decent pick of you can provide the closest road crossing.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Detroit,+MI/@42.368584,-83.0520406,255a,35y,94.13h,44.94t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8824ca0110cb1d75:0x5776864e35b9c4d2!8m2!3d42.331427!4d-83.0457538

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Detroit,+MI/@42.3701072,-83.0277271,689a,35y,354.09h,44.78t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8824ca0110cb1d75:0x5776864e35b9c4d2!8m2!3d42.331427!4d-83.0457538

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Google map through the downtown Detroit area.  I pass through there daily and i can maybe take some decent pick of you can provide the closest road crossing.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Detroit,+MI/@42.368584,-83.0520406,255a,35y,94.13h,44.94t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8824ca0110cb1d75:0x5776864e35b9c4d2!8m2!3d42.331427!4d-83.0457538

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Detroit,+MI/@42.3701072,-83.0277271,689a,35y,354.09h,44.78t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8824ca0110cb1d75:0x5776864e35b9c4d2!8m2!3d42.331427!4d-83.0457538

Oh man, the D provides!!

This scene might be perfect.
https://goo.gl/maps/j5drvBi3KHqGFrhi9

The trick would be to get a camera through that fence in the foreground, then zoom in so the plant in the distance fills as much of the frame as possible, and then essentially shoot a panorama.

I would be VERY appreciative!

Also, this scene... https://goo.gl/maps/DfZ2rcjyjgcEF2Xi9
Damn! You guys gotta up your Godzilla defense budget! That building got ROCKED.

[Lemosteam]

@Ed Kapuscinski I'll try my best!  I pass immediately by that location daily.

Sunny or cloudy day desired?

Ground level at the bottom of the frame  with big sky or center in the frame?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Sunny or cloudy day desired?

Overcast is best. Fewest shadows and lighting issues.

Ground level at the bottom of the frame  with big sky or center in the frame?

Fill the frame (as much as you can) with the stuff. A sky is easy enough to add or clone.

[randgust]

One thing I've done on all my photo backdrops is to simply paint the sky and then cut the sky out of the photos with an Xacto, and mount the building profiles only.   It started because I could never get all the bubbles out, and that I'd already painted a pretty decent horizon-line sky anyway (which is full blue at the top and fading into white at the horizon line).

It sure makes life a lot easier on matching stuff up and making collages.    You edge-paint the paper so that no edges show 'white' and just do the buildings. 

The backdrop here is a mix of commercial HO West!, historic postcards, and Google Earth images accurate to location.   Sky is shaded and painted with latex paint
http://www.randgust.com/winsta5.jpg
Ttrak backdrops done the same way.  The church is the one at this location today, hillside is at this location, sky is painted.
http://www.randgust.com/PRRBAG03.jpg

If you study that second one, you can see one of my tricks.  I 'flip' a photo horizontally and reprint it, so that it can match up EXACTLY edge to edge.   The backdrop splice line is in the middle of that one tree.   Without a splice line in the sky, it works.

[chuck geiger]

Randgust do you model Northern Az?

[randgust]

Did a western trip on early Amtrak with my parents in 1972, and got hooked on the area around Flagstaff.   The Chief had a daylight schedule through there, and I'd never seen that part of the state on my previous trips across.   I picked '72 because that's the year I rode, but it was also a great changeover year for ATSF with new freight and passenger paint schemes, last year of leased F-units on Amtrak, new power was U36C's and SD45-2's, Super C, York Canyon....

I specifically model Nelson Tunnel - Williams - Flagstaff - Winslow as the Albuquerque Third District.   Layout was started in 1983 and is pretty much finished as originally designed, I've been honing it for the last decade with new materials, equipment, all scratchbuilt structures.  There's a lot of video out on YouTube, just search for "Randgust" and you'll find it.

In 1975 I starred an 18x36" portable Pennsylvania logging railroad based on where my father worked in the 1920's and where my grandmother lived.  That logging layout (Hickory Valley) has been all over and featured in MR.  It's expanded to a second module, and now in to a series of T-trak modules based on the PRR secondary line that it connected to in the 1920's.   The PRR module photo above is West Hickory, PA, where the logging railroad junctioned with the PRR.   My fathers mill loaded boxcars on that exact spot when I was a kid.   I'm not really a PRR modeler, it's whatever supports the logging railroad interests, but I do enjoy the historical nature of the PRR modules in my own back yard.

The only person that's as screwed up with multiple and unrelated prototypes as me may be Dave Vollmer.

[chuck geiger]

My next, either normal or T TRAK will be Flag or Williams. Like you I got hooked on the area early, my aunt lived in Flag and would stay there as a kid in 1971'ish. Also spent time in Grand Canyon at South Rim and told a story about sneaking into the closed AT&SF freight station there on another thread and found some cool items. Celebrating my 64th this weekend in Williams and going on the GCR to park from Williams. I can't decide what to model and where, but will get some ideas this weekend. Sorry to hijack Ed's thread - Love your T Trak work too Rand. You did model the switch off the old Y to the oil and lumber. Kick a$$.

[chuck geiger]

Rand is Satan


randgust
Crew
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Posts: 1514
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[peteski]

Rand is Satan


randgust
Crew
*
 
Posts: 1514
Respect: +666

LOL!  But we're not afraid of the beast!  Besides, I just gave him an up-vote. So what is 667?  A somewhat lucky Satan?