My sister and I went to a clubhouse where she is a member of and is situated in the mountains and I knew it was just the right time for me to bring some dolls with me for taking photos. I knew the weather is bad, that it would be foggy up there, but the place has a pool side and lots of beach chairs and spacious rooms so I think I could come up with a photo or two. It was my first time to take a doll with me outside so I didn't have anything prepared. I just grabbed two dolls from my collection and hoped for the best.
I randomly picked two La Dee Da dolls, the newest additions to my collection. I found both of them at the thrift store on different occasions and thought I struck gold, doll gold haha, because they were quite in good condition even when they came with no clothes and shoes.
Here's the first photo I took:
This La Dee Da doll is City Girl Dee. I love her red hair. I dressed her up with Winx Club Flora top and skirt and clone Barbie fairy shoes. Look, this is really amateur of me because I didn't even bother anymore about Dee's upskirt shot, haha, but she has moulded panties anyway.
When I brought her out of my laptop bag and positioned her on the table, I felt awkward, because who does that but only doll hobbyists? I was a little scared of what to do, and I was even in a hurry to put her back in my bag, feeling that fear of being judged by the doll I carried with me from the city. But there weren't a lot of people around, so I went with it.
Dee is posing next to a huge taco salad. I love this. It's packed with vegetables and even came with guacamole. It was very filling and I would definitely order this when I come back.
Badly-lit photo, haha. I used the flash on my phone.
Look beyond the rail and you could see that it was foggy out there. If I wandered to the rock gardens nearby, I was afraid I'd slip because the ground is wet. So I didn't go for it.
My sister ordered a shoyu ramen, a soy sauce based noodle soup. To me, the soup doesn't look appetising in this photo because it lacks in presentation, but the broth actually tastes good. And it was a huge bowl that my sister and I had to share it.
I'm no food photographer, hey.
We also ordered two sets of salmon sushi, and here is my plate. The pieces are HUGE. Those aren't bite-sized at all.
That taco salad gave me gas, lol, but it was so worth it. I thought afterwards that we shouldn't have gotten an extra salmon sushi plate because the food was too much.
Afterwards, my sister and I went to the library because we were getting bitten by mosquitos at the pool side. There was wifi access so we took advantage of that and brought our laptops with us.
Here is Dee with another La Dee Da doll: Dee as Bee-licious. Basically Dee met herself here, haha. Anyway, I know this photo sucks because of the flash. It wasn't dark in the library. I just forgot to turn off the flash on this photo.
Dee as Bee-licious, um let's just call her Bee now to avoid confusion, is wearing a La Dee Da fashion pack dress, an unknown doll skirt over the dress, and clone Barbie fairy shoes. The shoes are in the wrong colour, but I didn't have any blue clone shoes like this. I only have red and purple.
Bee's solo shot. I am not fond of Bee's bent arms, but what can I do, eh?
I turned off the flash this time. See, the library wasn't dark at all.
Have a somewhat blurry shot of Bee again.
And here is Dee. I don't know why I posed her this way. Maybe I wanted her to look like she was having a coma for all the food we had earlier.
I'm not sure if you could see, but there's a small clothes pin at the back of Dee's skirt because Winx Club skirts are so wide waisted on La Dee Das. I guess it helps that the pin is colour red and is camouflaged in Dee's red hair.
I didn't take more photos of my dolls after this. I just put them back in my laptop bag and continued surfing the net. I was even watching where I left off on Most Popular Girls in School, haha.
Things I learned from this experience:
- It's better to practice posing your doll before you take her on a trip for a photo shoot. Knowing your doll's posing capability makes the shoot much faster to conduct, specially if it's a spontaneous shoot. Oh and it helps if you also think of how their eyes look, if they are painted straight or looking at the side. Sometimes I forget that dolls do not look straight at the camera so I end up forgetting to move their head towards it.
- Knowing how your camera works helps a lot too. Does it pick up light very well? Is it sensitive to motion? To be honest, I don't aspire to take Pinterest-worthy photos, but just photos I think that look decent enough to document whatever I was taking photos of. I like mobile phone photography that way because it doesn't take that much effort. But getting technical about this stuff, even just a little, can help improve future doll photos, right?
- A carrying case for dolls would be nice, to protect them from being broken, and if they came with accessories and props, those things would not get misplaced because they are packed securely. Just like how you would prepare for a flight, you need a bag or suitcase. Dolls need that, too.
- I guess it also helps in the story-telling of your photography if you have pre-set characteristics and background stories for your dolls. In my case, I didn't have anything planned for these two. They were just hanging out where I was. But what if, say, Dee has an adventurous side to her and she'd be the one getting into strange and hard to reach nooks and crannies in photos, while Bee is the dainty and prim and proper one, only seen sitting on chairs and couches? That would make an interesting photo shoot, I assume. These two dolls weren't even interacting with each other. They were just THERE.
- Muster all the courage and just go for it, no matter if other people look at you strange. It's just a doll you're holding, relax. It's not obscene, and it's not being loud, causing a racket and destroying the peace, so why should they care so much about your stuff? If someone asks about what you are doing, say it's for your blog, or it's for a project. Having a sense of purpose for the photo shoot makes you more strong-willed to just do it without hesitation.
Item no. 5 is my main issue because I am still not comfortable bringing dolls outside of my house. I mean, I'm not so open about my doll collecting to everyone, so the shyness is holding me back to take more photos, but I'll definitely work on it.
