I have long admired the wonderful, mod-looking HO and N-scale commercial buildings crafted by Vollmer in the 1950s and 1960s. Nothing gets me more than tiny for tiny! I finally got my hands on two such structures -- a department store and a toy store ("Spielwaren") -- which were originally intended for model train scenes. I wanted to try to capture their details and color, and challenged myself to see how closely I could zoom in on windows, doors, and the vibrant papers underneath.
I love the details of this long window pane.
Over the July 4th weekend, I visited Freda's Fancy, a doll house store in the Long Island town where my mother lives, and found a box of these great N scale figures, made by Preiser. They really reminded me of the very talented artist Slinkachu, who does amazing photography of these types of "people" adrift in the big real world as part of his "Little People" project. His street art installation work is so humorous and well-done. Have a look on his blog.
The set I have is here:
I had some fun setting them up in front of the buildings:
After reading through Slinkachu's bio, I saw reference made to the figures he uses, and they are indeed made by one in the same: Preiser. There's whole world of them on eBay, by the way. The details are amazingly fine and the possibilities great. Please let me know if you have similar Vollmer treasures! I'd love to see your photos.