BRAKIE
Phil said:I subscribed to MR from 1969-1977 and I never felt that John Allen was included disproportionately to any other modeler.
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You're about a decade to late..Time was the G&D was a monthly picture and John had several bylines in MR and RMC..The G&D was shown in several catalogs including PFM..
John was not the first to weather locomotives and cars but,was given the notoriety by Linn.The guy was a O Scale 2 railer...
Just as Brakie says, for a time John Allen's work was evident quite disproportionally in the hobby press. And remember, Gordon Varney was using images of his products shot on the G&D almost monthly, appearing sometimes in both MR and RMC at one time.
I also agree that there were quite a number of other hobbyists doing as good, or even better work, than John back in the 50's and early 60's. The G&D had a decided fantasy, or caricature bend, to much of it which many at the time were not a thrilled over as many are today. By the mid 1950's the trend was already decidedly toward realism and way from stretching reality.
There were also superior layout photographers to John in the 50's. Several were working with pinhole lenses and producing amazing images that were sometimes difficult to tell from the prototype (Bill Clouser, for instance). This was rarely ever so with John's work, which were always obviously scenes of models and often shot as more or less helicopter views - save for the trestle shots.
It is also worth pointing out that fame in a hobby is often based as much, or more, on exposure as opposed to outstanding talent. If a particular publication's editor likes your style of writing, or photographs, you can be assured of going to the head of the line when submitting material. Writers who require little or no copy editing quickly become favorites of an editor and by repeated exposure, can become very well known to readers. If their work, what ever the subject, is at least moderately good, the less accomplished will quickly come to place the individual on a pedestal. Far too often you need not be the best in a particular field to be famous, only widely known.
I'm not saying this to critcize John or his works, only that this is the real way fame often comes. John was an excellent modeler in my book but only one of many talented hobbyists at the time, most of whom never got the page space they deserved.
CNJ831