Street Art Dioramas: Another Way of Looking at Miniatures

Street art dioramas could be right under your foot and you might not notice. They are tiny, miniature people posed in the great, big, real world. Some are tiny people, some are model trains and some are buildings. All are varied ideas on the same theme of taking miniature art into the street, the outdoors, and posing to interact with the great big world out there.

I'm not a professional photographer. I like creative photography. There are so many things we can create but it's the photograph that keeps them around, remembered and shows them just like new long after the original is gone. Like making a sandcastle on the beach and taking a photo before people walking on the shore and the waves come in to sweep it away. A photograph preserves art and showcases art too.

I photograph old, abandoned and derelict buildings to keep something of them in the world, remembered. However, I love to see other art in photos. I've been watching for different ways to be creative with a camera. There are endless ways and means and styles.

One form of art which is captured by the camera are miniature dioramas created in the street, in public places. Some are in places people walk around all the time, but they might not notice them. Some are outdoors where people might only see them in a photograph.

I wasn't especially interested in art with miniatures. I saw model railways with whole towns and the little people in them. I admired the work, the imagination and creativity. But, I wasn't inspired to try it myself. For one thing, I knew I wouldn't have the patience to assemble an entire miniature village.

Then I found The Little People Project. I loved it. I went out and bought the smallest dolls I could find at the thrift store (2 Bratz Barbie-sized dolls) and started to try the idea of posing little people myself. I did it for awhile but I didn't have the right dolls, the right little people, so I put that project on the back burner. I still have the dolls and the photos I took.