Where do you take photos of your doll? Is it indoors? Outdoors? In a studio? On the kitchen table?

No matter where you do your dolly photo shoot, the setting needs to be believable to get a really good photograph of a doll.

In this video, we’ll compare shots of dolls that lack that believability factor.

Some additional things to think about when creating a believable setting:

• Does the background color compliment your doll’s hair and clothing?
• Can you place a tiny object in your doll’s hand, to make her surroundings even more believable? A flower? A fishing tackle box and pole? A telephone?
• Before you begin your photo shoot, consider the location… Will this particular doll suit the location, or would another doll look better there? What kind of clothing will look best in this setting?

The nice thing about doll photography is that you get to choose your subject. You also get to choose what he/she is wearing. When photographing a doll with a horse, you might opt for the jeans-and-plaid shirt outfit. When shooting a doll in front of a cathedral, perhaps a wedding gown makes more sense.

Perhaps I seem like a hypocrite in suggesting that the doll’s clothes need to match the setting. After all, I took a lot of photos of my Tonner® doll in a mountainous setting with old barns all around her… even though she’s dressed in a business suit!

Well I must confess; that wasn’t planned. Before we went camping in the mountains, I had cut out a pair of jeans to go with the white sleeveless top. I brought this jeans-sewing-project (along with two other projects) along on our camping trip. However, once we reached our destination, I discovered the jeans didn’t fit! So I was stuck with the other item I had cut out for the trip: the business-style skirt.

The whole time I took those photos, I kept saying to myself, “I’ll just make some tutorials on ‘what NOT to do’ and use these pictures for that.”

And voila! Now you have a series of tutorials on doll photography — with an emphasis on what NOT to do. LOL!

 

Additional Information:

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My Gallery Page is the easiest way to search through all of my patterns to find what you want. Each image on the Gallery Page takes you to links for patterns and tutorials.

Need help printing my patterns? This link offers a tutorial showing you how to download and print my FREE patterns using Google Docs. (For the older print-a-pattern tutorial, which uses Microsoft Word, click here.) To review my difficulty scale, take a look back at this blog post.

Please note: you must enlarge my patterns to fit a full-sized piece of American computer paper (8.5 x 11 inches or 216 x 279 mm) without margins, before printing. These designs use a scant 1/4 inch seam (4 mm to be exact).

If you’re wondering why I make patterns and videos without charging a fee, please visit the “Chelly’s Books” page, and that should explain my general motivations. My patterns are now available through “Creative Commons Attribution.” This means that I created my patterns (and therefore I own rights to them), but I’m willing to share them with everyone who will tell people about my website.

Here are some helpful ways to tell the world about my patterns:

• You can pin them on Pinterest.
• You can like them on Facebook.
• You can tweet about them.
• Use any other form of social media that appeals to you!

Are you new to sewing? I’ve got a playlist of tutorials for the beginning sewists on my YouTube channel. It includes video tutorials showing you how to do a basic straight stitch when sewing by hand, how to use the whipstitch to hem a garment, how to sew on snaps, and even how to design your own doll clothes patterns, for those who are new to design and alterations.

In case you haven’t heard, I have actually designed some commercial patterns for Lammily LLC. They have some new dolls in their line, including a new male doll, so you might want to visit the Lammily website to see what they’ve got going on.

If your question wasn’t answered here, feel free to submit a question. I’m always happy to help my followers find what they need, so they, too, can make amazing doll clothes and crafts!