To Iron Horseman. I first built the HO scale modular board, a 4 foot by 2 foot for a modular club I had recently joined. After it was complete, I needed a backdrop and decided that I could find something that would work down at a large oil refinery here in Southern California (not sure where you reside). I went to the Wilmington Refinery and drove around until I found a spot to park overlooking part of the refinery. I remember thinking it was perfect. I took about 7 photos across from left to right with each photo slightly overlapping. I used a digital Canon PowerShot SX10IS, but any good camera should work. I had the camera on a tripod so as I panned across with each photo, I kept the sky above on each one and nothing too close in the foreground on a straight level plane. I have an HP photo computer that allows me to edit the photos and I did just that with the shots I took correcting sharpness, exposure, contrast, shadow, color saturation, etc. I then sent them on line to a guy back east who at the time had a business making and selling diorama backdrops. His business was called "Backdrop Junction" and he took my photos and "blended" them so you could not tell where the edge of each photo was. He was really good. He then put them all on a 4 foot wide by 1 foot high roll of adhesive paper that you apply to your backdrop board. What I wanted most was for my photos and module to blend forground with background. Here is where natural sunlight can work for you. I had the backdrop attached to my module. The module was on legs and not really heavy so I could position it to the angle of the sun as seen in the photo backdrops. I remember taking the photos about 11 am in the morning and so I placed my module outside at 11 am and positioned the board items to match the photo shadows, etc. For example the large tank on the right (Shell Oil) shadow is aligned with the shadows on tanks in the photos. Again I used my Canon camera on a tripod so I had control of the view through the view screen. I think it came out quite well and am glad you like them. As for Backdrop Junction, the previous owner sold the business to someone else last year. But there are a number of guys who offer backdrop photos if you need them. Hope this helps.
