Sure, a photograph forces everyone to view the subject from the exact same way.

But hang a photo on the wall, and the entire room can view it.

Put the photo in a non-descript box, with a pinhole for viewing and then force a single viewer to stoop to use the pinhole,

and suddenly the visual strength of the photo is severely impacted, maybe even ignored.

I think, if you put your art on display or enter it into a competition of some sort, then you have built for an audience,

or at least expect an audience to view and judge your art...and in that case you must consider the audience when building.

Or, at least consider the audience when displaying the work.

That Whaler diorama is a thing of beauty, and is the ultimate "diorama" - a still image that can be viewed from every angle.

In my opinion a true "diorama" captures a moment in time and doesn't restrict the viewing angle.

It can limit it, but not restrict to the degree that a photo or still painting does.

And that is the beauty of 3D scale modeling.

I studied Graphic Arts in High School.

But I worked for the next 20 years as an Auto Mechanic.

I was okay with pen and ink, art markers, etc but I always had difficulty with painting of any kind because of my colourblindness.

It wasn't until in my thirties that I took up airbrushing...because I was very good at it...and suddenly I lost the fear of painting in colour.

I got into custom painting large scale murals and custom cars and bikes for a living. [shameless: https://davesdesigns.ca/davesdesigns/davesairbrush/]

And I taught airbrushing.

Eventually I moved over to digital art and design.

I built plastic kits as a kid (cars and aircraft)  and then I got into designing and building paper models (mainly digital work)

Now I'm trying my hand again at plastic modeling.

Applying all of that to building plastic models is pretty easy, but still doesn't make me any good at it! lol