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.
I may 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:
__________________
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.
My patterns are 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!
My weekly tutorials on doll photography were created a few years ago, but since the editor of Doll Castle Magazine recently asked me to write an article on doll photography (which was published in this month’s magazine), I thought it would be nice to re-publish these tips. Incidentally, the magazine article offers additional tips and tricks for doll photography, above and beyond the series I published here.
The following links will take you back to my earlier blog posts on doll photography, or you could view the video series on my YouTube channel, ChellyWood1:
- Doll Photography Tip #1
- Doll Photography Tip #2
- Doll Photography Tip #3
- Doll Photography Tip #4
- Doll Photography Tip #5