Wren Feathers Tips to take better doll pictures As always this info is by me (Jennie Bagrowski) and is for your personal use only, you MAY share it by linking to this blog, you may NOT sell it or upload it to any site without my permission. If you downloaded this elsewhere it was stolen from: http://jenwrenne.wordpress.com This is a bad picture. So is this.
And yes, I took those photos and posted them online years ago to share how cute their outfits were. This is a much better picture. Why? Good pictures don t just happen. Aside from reading about photography, I ve learned a lot from asking my husband his opinions on my pix and hearing him say, This one is better because Go through the rest of this, then as a quiz, come back and see if you can name all the ways the first pictures are terrible and this one is not!
Make sure your subject is in focus! This seems obvious, but there are a surprising number of terrible, blurry photos to be found online. Many cameras today, including those on your phone might have something called a face finder you can turn on. Unless your doll is very cartoon-like, these will usually find doll faces just fine and ensure that they are in focus. Framing and backdrops Unless you have a really good lens or photo editing software that lets you blur or remove the background, pay attention to what's behind the doll and how she fills up the frame. 1. A cluttered backdrop will draw attention away from your subject and just looks like you didn t care enough to bother much with the picture. 2. Even with a plain backdrop, get closer! If the doll is what you're focusing on, eliminate as much background as possible 3. Still not a great picture, but much better!
Avoiding vacant doll stare If you're doing a simple portrait photo, the doll should be looking at the camera, or gazing at an object or in a specific direction. She should NOT have a vacant stare. My husband is an excellent photographer, but even he gets this wrong sometimes. See how much more engaging the photos on top are? Clem is tilted a bit and has that vacant doll stare. Because of their eye placement, this can be harder with some dolls than others! For example, the AG classic and Addy face molds look straight at you in a picture more easily than the Josefina/Julie/Rebecca one. It s vital to get down to the doll s level, or put her up at yours. Adjusting your camera angle a bit can help, as well as making use of a tilting neck if the doll has one.
This picture above would be perfect, except they re not looking in the same direction. Galina looks realistic, but Alister tipped back a bit and has vacant doll stare. His position was corrected in the bottom photo. It s a subtle difference, I agree. But the bottom picture just looks better with their eyes adjusted correctly.
If they re interacting with other dolls or objects, they should be looking at you, each other, or the objects. Think about what you want the picture s focus to be and note that people s gaze tends to follow eye direction of other people. So, for example, in the above pic, Alister and Robby are both looking at the block in Alister s hand, and that s probably where your eye was drawn also. Whenever possible, the doll should be standing on her own. Propping dolls against something can put them at a bit of an angle that looks unnatural and practically guarantees vacant doll stare.
It's impossible to overstate how important lighting is to photography. On a sunny day, my favorite pictures are those taken outside in the shade. Full sunlight is usually too harsh for a doll's delicate features and can make her face look flat or washed out. Another problem, depending on the sun s angle is odd shadows either on her face or behind her. The pic on the left was intentionally bad. The one on the right is wellcomposed and has nice color balance, but the shadows on Alister s face are unattractive and Galina looks washed out by the harsh mountain sun. Even if you are in the shade, make sure her face is pointing toward the sun for the best lighting on it, and don t stand directly between them move away until you re not shadowing and then zoom in if needed. Don't stand between the light source and the doll! Backlighting (having a light source behind the subject) is usually a terrible idea for portraits. You think you can put the doll in front of a window and get a nice backdrop, but without some manual adjustments, your camera will usually pick up the light from the window and leave your doll shadowed n the dark!
Lighting your indoor photos If it s too cold/windy/rainy/snowy to take nice pictures outside, you need to move indoors. While it s relatively easy to get nice shots of dolls outside in the shade on a sunny day, indoor photos are much more challenging! Have you gotten around to making the fairy cottage? http://jenwrenne.wordpress.com/2013/06/24/fairy-cottageplayhouse-for-18-dolls/ You can remove the cover and use it as a little studio for small doll photography too! Here you see it on a table with fabric (fake fur) draped along the back and bottom. The top and right side are covered with white batiste to soften the glare of the lights. There s a reflector on the left (arrow) made of that shiny bubble-wrap type stuff that car sun shades are made of. Two Ikea desk lamps are clamped in place and easily re-position-able. A clamp light from the hardware store is attached to one of them to provide overhead light. The others shine in the side and from the front. You can see how harsh the light looks on the dolls outside and inside the tent. I did nothing differently all of these were shot on the auto setting
And here they all are inside
If you re very serious about indoor pix, you can build this amazingly tacky PVC eyesore to occupy the area that used to be your dining room! It has lots of spaces to clamp lights on wherever they re needed, and provides a great frame to clip on backgrounds, as well as thin fabric or reflectors to modify the natural light. It actually does disassemble into smaller components, assuming we ever want to use that space for its intended function again!
If you re willing to experiment with different lighting settings on your camera, you can improve your pictures even more. Many cameras have several settings for specific lighting in case you don t want to set the white balance yourself, but check your manual and learn how to do it and you ll be able to take pictures whose color is closer to real life. Pay attention to the things that are white in the photos below. You can see that while Auto white balance produces a perfectly adequate photo, it s not as crisp as it could be. My lights are a combination of wattages of white fluorescents, yet neither fluorescent setting from the camera looks even close to real life. The best results come from manual white balance, which can be mildly annoying to set up, but once you do, it s likely you won t have to do it again during that shoot, unlike in outdoor settings where light might change more rapidly. Auto * Daylight * Cloudy White Fluorescent * Daylight Fluorescent * Manual White Balance Most importantly, no one wants to see all 20 photos you took of the same doll in the same dress, pose, and location. Pick 1-2 of the best and share them.