Photography and Set Scenes

There was a photographic studio, or photograph store I'm not sure which, located near the main gate house of the factory. Photography at the factory was a prolific activity with hundreds of images taken of vehicles both in chassis form and complete custom liveried vehicles. A publicity film was also made in the late 1940s, as shown on our Thornycroft page.

A set scene I want to replicate was the Dunlop van being photographed outside the factory in Worting Road. For this scene a photographer had to be fabricated holding a camera pointed at the vehicle. In the 1930s single lens reflex cameras were available but fabricating a photographer in N scale holding a 35mm reflex camera would be quite insignificant. The larger format cameras were still used by the press so I decided to give him one of those. Next, I needed to understand how they were used so searched for a 1930s photographer and discovered a wonderful picture of the American photographer Rudy Arnold, who was famous for photographing aeroplanes. Seems entirely reasonable that his press style camera could also be used for photographing road vehicles. His pose was copied for our model, which was dressed smartly with waist coat like Rudy is wearing.

The method of making the figure is described here.

I had hoped to show the set scene of Dunlop van with photographer but the backdrop of trees and shrubs on the layout have yet to be modelled.

One scene we have finished is our recreation of this 1920s or 1930s view. It is an A3 6 wheeled lorry loaded with hay or straw that is being unloaded into the Wood Store. The lorry itself has no number plates fitted and no spare wheel so I think it is either a demonstration model or a production unit before dispatch to customer.

David.
A3 photo by Ed.