Michael Paul Smith, creator of Elgin Park

Michael Paul Smith composes a photograph of Elgin Park, a fictional miniaturized town from the 1950s. Smith says Elgin Park is based on his hometown, Sewickley, Pa., a small town seven miles north of Pittsburgh. His family moved to Worcester when he was 16. Michael Paul Smith’s intent in building and photographing a fictional miniaturized town from the 1950s was to catalog the past, but somewhere along the way, he became an Internet sensation after posting his nostalgia-evoking photos on Flickr. Mr. Smit