OK, so now you have built a beautiful model aircraft after many hours of hard work, and you are displaying it in a place of honor. Everyone who has seen your work is impressed, and now you want to photograph the model so that you can share your work with friends and family far away.

Of course you could just grab your camera, set it on a table, snap a few shots, load them onto the internet with a program like PhotoWorks and send them on their way. But will that really get the oohs and ahhhs you are looking for?

Probably not.

My husband is a pilot, as I am, and loves airplanes. So when he completes one of his models, or acquires a new one from someone else, one of the first things he wants me to do is photograph it. This is where it gets interesting.

The first thing to consider is scale. By this I mean you want to place the aircraft model somewhere in the vicinity of ordinary objects that everyone will recognize and understand the scale of. This way they can tell if it is a micro-model, a 1/48th scale model or a ¼ scale model.

The second consideration is how to compose the picture of the model. You will want to make sure that there is nothing in the background that is so prominent that it attracts the viewer’s eyes and draws them away from the model.

One way to accomplish this is to use depth of field to focus on the model and blur the background. This is when the object of the photograph is in focus and everything in the background is out of focus.

By this I mean use an aperture setting (f-stop) which is small such as f/4.0 or lower. This will assure that the airplane model is in focus while the background is fuzzy, or out of focus.

Last, be sure and consider the light. A photograph is simply a representation of the amount and kind of light that strikes the film or sensor inside the camera. Different kinds of light will create different kinds of images.

The next time you are at the mall walk over to one of those jewelry store counters and observe how the light above highlights the stones in the jewelry below. This is a selective use of a very specific kind of light to achieve a desired result.

When photographing your aircraft model it is best to use natural light, which means photographing the model in its natural environment – outdoors. In this case photograph the model in the morning or late afternoon because the light will be softer thus giving your photograph a warmer feel. Be sure and take more than one photograph, from different angles, and don’t always place the model dead center in your photograph. Use your imagination to create an interesting photograph but always make sure that nothing else in the photo takes the viewer’s eyes away from the object of the photograph – your airplane model.

About The Author

Betty A. Muscott is a child photographer who publishes a daily blog about photography, and in particular about photographing children. On her website she provides useful tips and suggestions for equipment such as a Cannon pink digital camera for girls, and reviews of the best starter digital cameras to purchase.