Behind the Scene 2019

Taking a look at the set-ups for some of my photo shoots this year - when I remembered to take them
In the order they were taken...

Houseplant Appreciation Day

I had found some miniature cyclamen at the local nursery, and purchased three just for this photo. I wanted the setting to look like it was in a Victorian conservatory, so set up the scene on a box on my kitchen table, where there were lots of plants...

I used a photography light to offset the back-lighting from outside. The cropped in picture....

the Music of the Night

Having just completed a set of Phantom costumes for Rex and Bianca, I needed an opulent Victorian theatre setting tp represent the Paris Opera House in 1881. The scene was going to be 'dark', so I wanted a dark wooden floor, that would reflect light from the candles. So that meant my dining-room table. I positioned the French doors so they opened into the room, and jammed them into place on the carpet. Then I got some very wide wooden rods to hold up the curtains across the tops of the open doors.

We went looking for small scale candles, but couldn't find any, so just used regular white tapers, cut down to size. I hot glued them onto the tops of some decorative candle stands, and spent some time dripping wax down them to make them look more interesting.

(with the French door open, you can see one of my 'secret' storage locations. The door itself has a fabric liner on the back - the same colour as the walls, and there's a brown curtain hanging off the front end of the end of the shelving unit, to hide the boxes when taking photos on the table. The shelving holds five boxes of doll clothes, and six boxes of fabrics, my camera case, and several bags of stuffing. But everything 'disappears' when the door is in its usual position)

Then I waited until later in the day, when it wasn't quite so bright in the room, and lit the candles....

I decided the candles seemed a bit big after all, so we made one last attempt to find some smaller ones, and found some at the local party store. They were a bit thin this time, so I spent an hour dripping wax down them to make them wider, and more interesting.

I took a side view shot this time, and waited until later in the afternoon when the sun went down behind the house to the west of us, and it wasn't quite so bright out. Then lit the candles, and took the photos using the camera with timer on my tri-pod....much better!

As careful as I tried to be, I did get plenty of wax on my table - not from the candles themselves dripping, but from the melted wax spraying when I blew the candles out (several times per photo shoot, so the candles wouldn't burn down too quickly as I changed poses). However, I googled 'how to remove wax from a wooden table, and they said to scrape it off with the edge of an old credit card. Which worked like magic!

Cleaning Up After Christmas

After Christmas I shot a series of photos for my sister, using her gnome characters, so after shooting the Phantom I had to put the Gnome Family Christmas setting back up. When I was finally done, it was time to clean up all the Christmas stuff for another year. Most was already packed up and taken away when I took these photos. There were just some odds and ends left to put away in the proper boxes. I'd made, and acquired, so many new props that I needed a photo-copy paper box to hold it all.

Pie Day

January 23rd is 'National Pie Day', and I wanted to take some new pictures. Leona and Coco were about the only dolls in contemporary clothes at the moment, so they ended up being the subjects. Of course it had to be in the kitchen, so I set up the little scene on top of a box on the peninsulas part of the counter...

The bench I always use as the doll's 'counter' is too low, so I propped it a bit higher with some board books, and Coco is too short, so he also has two books underneath him. It was a snowy day, so not very bright inside, so I needed my photography light.

Then I took photos, using my tri-pod.

I changed the doll's poses, and moved around to get photos from different angles....

Leona's apple peels are real. I just trimmed some very narrow. The pastry is really just some Sculpey that I rolled thin. I laid it in the flour to look more realistic, but that was easy enough to wash off afterwards.

*How to make miniature flour and sugar bags: When our real bags were empty, and ready to go into recycle, I opened them up and flattened them out as best I could, and took photos of them. The sugar bag was more effective since it wasn't shiny, and reflective, like the flour bag. Then I shrank them on the computer and printed them out on the colour printer. Then cut them out and glued them together. After a few years, the colour is starting to wear off - which is why I'm only using the French side these days, since it's not as worn (plus it was lighter to begin with, due to the shine) but I can always make new ones if they get really bad..

the Snow Fairy

I had to take advantage of the January 29th snowstorm to take the photo I'd envisioned of Kassia and the animals (which I'd made her wings for) and before the deep freeze settled back in that night for the rest of the week. But with roads still impassible, I had to find somewhere on my own property. The cedar hedge along the north side seemed about right, so I hauled out the slide-projector stand, put a board on top, and shovelled some snow onto it. Then posed Kassia and her friends...

I had to shovel some spaces into Jan's snow piles, so I could take photos from a better angle, and I had to pay attention that the horse especially, wasn't right in front of a really snowy part of the hedge, since I wanted him to stand out. Then I snapped photos until my hands got too painful from the cold, and I had to take everything back inside. But the resulting pictures were well worth it.....

Effie's Birthday

I set up a 'room' on the end of the dining room table, paying attention to not duplicate someone else's 'house interior. I blow up tiny 'water balloons' and suspend them from the chandelier overhead. Same with the piñata. I actually use a twist tie to secure a dowel through the chandelier to make a longer surface to hang everything from.

Then I zoom in to take photos...

the Peacock Painting

One day in February, my sister presented me with another small pallet knife painting. It was a 'Thank You' gift for shooting the Christmas story with her gnomes. I found an old frame at Value Village, which Jan cut down to size..

It's a flipped variation of the peacock painting that hangs above our real life fireplace. She painted that one many years ago, back in art school. The students had to come up with something 'living' turning into something inanimate, so her painting depicts a peacock with the shapes in it's tail feathers turning into neon lights. The mini painting is just a 'plain' peacock.

So now one of my doll families will have it hanging above their fireplace too...

Rachel's Stuffies

One Saturday Rachel brought along a bag full of her stuffs, asking to have a photo taken with them...
so we set up on the end of the dining room table....

...and added the stuffs, and took a photo....

Just Standing Around

I had a group of dolls standing in my workspace and thought they'd make an interesting group picture.
There's FID Rex at the back, KIDs Paige and David (Daisy boy) in front of him, then BID Ringo, and the two House Elves, Willie and Phairby, from DreamHigh Studio in the front.

Rex & Bianca in the Scillas

From the first time we took them out. I set up the dolls how I think I want, then go sit down on the ground at a distance with my telephoto lens, then direct Jan to make any minor adjustments...

The Photo....

I changed the two dolls into other costumes, and practiced setting up a scene at home...

I was hoping that I'd be able to recreate these scenes...

So I packed everything we'd need, and we drove down to the lake, and hiked along the Waterfront Trail to the foot of Petticoat Creek Conservation area. I found the spot I wanted to take the photos, and laid everything out...

When I had the dolls posed as well as I could, I sat down on the blanket, and directed Jan to make any minor adjustments...

....and took photos....

This is as close as I managed to get to the original idea I had at home. The underbrush was too thick too shoot from other angles...

the Peacock Embroidery

I needed an 'elegant' background, and that means just one place will do....the floor in front of my dining room 'china' cabinet. It's one of the most difficult places to shoot, because of the hard floor. Getting down is bad enough, but getting up is even worse. But it's one of the sacrifices I'll still make for my doll photos. So I hung the painting on the doorknob, set up my scene, got down (had to actually lay flat on the floor) and took some photos. Then struggled to get up, and was in pain for the rest of the day....

Into the Fairy Wood

I came across a lovely painting on Facebook, entitled "the Fairy Wood", by Henry Meynell Rheam, c 1903.

It was the carpet of blue flowers that really caught my imagination. I thought I could maybe do something like that with some of my dolls in the scillas some day. Then someone on Facebook suggested they'd like to see me recreate that scene with my dolls. Challenge accepted! Except there was no way my version would be exact. The real flowers are a lot taller, and I don't have those kinds of costumes, or a knight. So substitution was in order, and off we went....

Back to the Lakefront Trail, and the bridge across Petticoat Creek....

...carrying everything we'd need....
(I do my fair share of carrying stuff too, but Jan took it all so I could take the photos)

I did the initial posing of the fairies, then Jan moved Adrian and his horse into position....

....and I took photos. Here's just one.....

Then Jan decided that the Prince needed to meet the fairies, so he went and moved him closer....

Time to do some House Cleaning

Everything up off the floor...

Cloth dolls down off the shelf, so it can be dusted....

Models for Program Development

Our youngest son works in the movie industry, writing computer programs for special effects. His newest project involved something to do with green screen, and since he was just starting work on it and wasn't ready to rent a studio with real, human models, he asked if he could come over and photograph some of my dolls. That certainly sounded interesting, so sure, why not??

So yhe came on the last day of May, with all his computers and camera equipment, and set up downstairs in the photo studio he had set up while he still lived here (and I still use occasionally)

He had brought along three big computer screens to provide his light source, and positioned the dolls between them, and took lots of photos as the lights flashed from all the different directions....

He asked for dolls with a wide range of skin tones, and different colours and styles of wigs, especially ones with very fine hair that would be in scale to a human's hair.

These were some of the dolls, standing in line waiting their turn. The dolls on the left were all different skintones, and Kassia was chosen because she was all white, and would provide an extra challenge. He noted all the dolls were dressed in warm tones or neutrals, and he needed someone in blue, so Narae in her blue plaid joined the line up....

After shooting everyone else, he needed someone wearing gray....so Rex had a turn too....

The next morning he said his tests were a success and that my dolls would work perfectly for what he had in mind....until he's ready to use live models. Anyways, once he's further into the development of his program, he will need to come back and photograph dolls with more specific requirements. Should be fun!