Composition and a fruit Club…

Composition of a model railway is something I discuss at length in the first two of my books, ‘Small Layot Design: Handbook’ and ‘The Art of Railway Modelling’. It is not a paint by numbers approach, nor just a minimalist method - I suppose in a sentence, it’s a set of deliberate decisions about what to include (and what to leave out) to tell your story…

That isn’t to say there aren’t some ‘rules’ or concepts about what works and what doesn’t - just that they can’t be applied in isolation. 

I was taking a photo on Paxton Road recently and to improve the angle I removed the tree, that sits stage left at the front - this was always removable for this purpose. This series of photos show just how much of an impact that tree has on the overall composition.

In some ways it breaks the traditional rules, placing it at the front, in the shadow, but I wanted it as part of my story, imagining myself leaning against its gnarled trunk eating sandwiches and a fruit Club. It does more though, it softens the exit and makes the rather contrived road bridge somehow more acceptable.

Without it, too, the scene feels a little unbalanced, the height and visual mass of the cement silo becoming a touch too dominant in the small space. I suppose in a mechanistic sense it may be described as a view block, to disguise the exit - but how many of us would have considered the bridge to hide the exit alone? I think I might have done… its presence is the story. Its benefit a bonus - and a lesson learnt for future projects. Until next time, more soon…

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