Tips on photographing your dolls!

 

In yesterdays post I announced the new photo contest. Today I thought I would let you in on some great doll photography tips. A few months ago my friend Susie sent me the Doll fun have fun with photos article from the American Girl magazine from the January/ February 2010 issue and inside were great tips on how to take a great photo with any camera. Now I have been taking photos for years but some how photographing dolls was not as easy in the beginning ( you can tell by earlier photos from my blog) as taking photos of real people.  Some of the tips in that article really helped my photography and some of what I learned came from trial and error. 

If you missed the article in American Girl magazine here are some of the finer points

Chose the right spot!  find a location that will work and remove as much people sized items as possible, "if you take the photo from father away things will appear smaller and more doll sized."

Setting the scene and posing your doll. Either have the dolls look at each other  or directly at you or the camera. If the dolls look at each other it looks like they are talking to each other. 

To help making the photo look like the dolls are doing real things use doll sized props like tea sets, pets and place things in their hands like phone's or flags. You can get your doll to hold just about anything with skin toned or clear elastics which you can find at the dollar store.

Taking your dolls photo outside also usually has great results. Get up close to your dolls remember their entire body doesn't have to be in the photo. Also do not shoot the photo directly in the sun, try to take photos on cloudy days for the best effects.

Another great trick and one I use daily is use an editing software. I use http://www.picnik.com

it is a free software that really helps crop or enhance your photos, you can add "stickers" or change the photo to black and white or sepia. The best part is the more photos you take the better your photos will get and the more fun you will have. Remember to enter my photo contest, enter today! 

As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com and send your photo entries their as well.