Adventure, Miniature-Style
Al Baker uses his Tamron lenses to create tiny worlds he hopes one day to visit.
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By Jenn Gidman
Images by Al Baker
Taking photos of miniatures became Al Baker’s guilty pleasure during the pandemic, when he wasn’t able to create his usual landscape and adventure images. With homemade sets mostly crafted from found items around his Las Vegas home, as well as hobby train figurines the size of his fingertip that he buys and paints himself, Al transports his viewers into Lilliputian-style worlds yanked straight from his imagination.
Now that’s he’s free to move about the planet again, the Las Vegas photographer still finds the time to “go mini,” including with this latest series of adventure sports photos created with a trio of Tamron lenses: the 17-28mm F/2.8 Di III RXD wide-angle zoom, 28-75mm F/2.8 Di III VXD G2 standard zoom, and 70-180mm F/2.8 Di III VC VXD G2 telephoto zoom for his mirrorless camera system. “All three of these lenses feature amazing close-focusing capabilities, which is critical for miniature work,” Al notes. “I particularly love the depth of field I’m able to achieve with the 70-180mm G2. I’ll typically shoot from more of a distance with this lens and zoom in.”
With the 28-75mm G2, Al is able to get even closer to his tiny subjects, thanks to a maximum magnification ratio of 1:2.7, a minimum object distance (MOD) of 7.1 inches at the wide end, and a working distance of just 1.7 inches at the MOD. As for the 17-28mm, Al taps into that particular lens when he’s shooting miniatures in a more compressed setting, like the inside of an “underwater cave,” allowing him to fit the entire scene in his frame. “I get really close and can then build everything around the camera rather than just in front of the camera,” he says. “I love shooting wide angle with my Tamron lens in those situations.”
17-28mm (18mm), F2.8, 1.6 sec, ISO 50
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For this newest set of images, Al conjured up scenes of kayaking, trekking, mountain climbing, and other action-packed activities. “I’ve done a lot of climbing myself, and when the pandemic hit, I suddenly couldn’t climb anymore,” he says. “I started putting together these pieces out of boredom, building scenes of far-flung places around the world that I long to visit.”
45mm, F/5, 1/10 sec., ISO 320
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Behind-the-scene
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Those “found” items mentioned earlier are key for Al’s sets. “For the photo of the kayaker floating over the giant whale—a toy that I bought at Walmart—I broke out a piece of glass used for stained-glass art that emulates the look of water,” he says. “And skewer sticks are among my most versatile tools. I’ve included a behind-the-scenes shot here showing how I set up one of my rock-climbing images. The set is on top of a tool roller table in my garage, with the skewers holding up the spray-painted foam ‘rock’ that the climber is clinging to. The mountains were paper cutouts silhouetted by the natural light coming in from the open garage door, and then I placed tracing paper in front of them to create that foggy effect. The resulting photo is actually a re-creation of a well-known Jimmy Chin photo that I’d wanted to try.”
28-75mm (28mm), F3.2, 1/100 sec, ISO 100
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Behind-the-scene
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Another Jimmy Chin photo, used on the cover of Chin’s book There and Back, served as the inspiration for a scene of two hikers trudging through the snow. “I wanted a perfect replica of that cover,” Al says. “I kept referring back to the book cover as I stacked the foam at varying levels of thickness, with some plain white flour sprinkled on top for effect.”
28-75mm (30mm), F2.8, 1/50 sec, ISO 100
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Al’s lighting for his projects can be as simple as that natural light flowing in from his garage door, or he’ll experiment with more elaborate setups. “It’s much easier to re-create lighting that I love when shooting the miniatures than to find the lighting I love when I’m out doing my actual landscape and adventure photography,” he says. “I use various Lume Cube lights when I go that route.”
For instance, for his whale photo, Al positioned a couple of small portable lighting units set up on tripods next to his “scene,” which you can see in his behind-the-scenes pic. “Meanwhile, for the underwater cavern photo, which was a rounded bunch of foam I cut out and spray-painted, then filled with sand, I directed one of my light sources down into that hole in the foam, then sprayed artificial fog spray to enhance the light beam. As for the highline moon shot, the moon is a toy that lights up. I built the entire set in front of the glowing moon, and also used an additional light source to make it look like the moon is backlighting my fake red-rock formations. There are so many ways to get creative with lighting on these sets.”
70-180mm (162mm), F11, 0.6 sec, ISO 640
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To see more of Al Baker’s work, check out his website and Instagram.
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