Michael Paul Smith is a guy who has found his niche.  He has turned his model collecting/making hobby into incredible photographic works of art.  Here it is in a nutshell:  He takes die cast model cars, couples them with model buildings (which he creates down to the last detail), and then photographs them against real backgrounds.  Sounds incredibly tedious, but the results are mind-blowing.  The key to it:  Keeping everything in scale.  This is so the mind doesn’t freak out and disbelieve everything it is taking in.  I dare you to look at one of his scenes and tell me it doesn’t look authentic.  He calls this accumulation of pictures and captions Elgin Park.  I do have one question for him:  Why so many cars, but so few people?!

We talk about his brushes with an exorcist, the recreation of a crashed alien space craft, and a crazy fan obsessed with the chronological accuracy of Helvetica font.