An inadvertent homage to E. L. Moore?

No.

Well, maybe.

Ok, no.

The photographer, with his camera and tripod (wire, balsa and a jewel for lens) has a bit of Kleenex for a focusing cloth, and his head is stuck to the back of the camera with liquid solder.

E. L. Moore explaining how he built his photographer - his alter ego - from a Weston Flexible Freddie in Put Your Figures to Work that appeared in the July 1957 issue of Model Railroader.

I saw that scene in the photo, with the Moorian photographer in the lower right corner, in the lead photo to The Saga of the Elk River Line that appeared in the May 1970 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. If you recall the post The Adventures of E. L. Moore, Train Photographer, you'll notice the similarities of the photographer to E. L. Moore's are, as Yogi Berra might say, very similar. My guess is it's all a coincidence, but illustrates that a man with an E. L. Moore fixation thinks everything relates in some way to E. L. Moore :-)

P.S., Dave Frary and Bob Hayden's Elk River Line series that appeared in RMC during 1970 is another classic series and is well worth looking up.