Matthew Albanese creates small-scale meticulously detailed models of outdoor scenes and landscapes using everyday, simple, mundane materials and transform them into an image through the lens of his camera making them look hyper-realistic. Albanese has used ordinary household items such as spices, cotton, colored paper, ink, steel wool and glasses to create his dioramas. We have featured Matthew Albanese’s amazing work in 2010. Here are some of his more recent creations.

Matthew Albanese stumbled upon his Strange Worlds idea by accident one day while in the kitchen at work.

“The first Strange World that I created was Paprika Mars,” Matthew details. “I had spilled paprika in the kitchen and instead of cleaning it, I was playing with it. It was the color and the texture and I just had the inspiration to create Mars out of it.”

And thus began an obsession with miniature dioramas. By day, Matthew is a professional fashion photographer. By night, he’s been creating large dioramas of tiny environments and photographing them.