This past Saturday Teagan brought a doll with all kinds of beach accessories, and since I'm not partial to shooting 'outdoor' scenes inside, I took everything outside - even though it was minus 10 - and chose a spot where there was still some snow.....

Then we had fun filling Easter baskets for the doll and ponies, for an Easter portrait....

In a new, unexpected turn of events, several of my smaller dolls are going to get the opportunity to become 'fantasy adventurers' - a group of pirates, or a tiny LOTR group, or something else totally fantasy barbarian-ish.  And they need a 'leader', so Jan wanted me to choose a KID that would make a good boy, and he'd order him for my birthday next month. I had a hard time choosing since only a couple of the KIDs look like they could pass as boys in my opinion. At the end it was between Lisa and Milly, but I finally chose Milly since she's a different sculpt that I don't already have....

Milly in the photo above is Peach-Gold, but I'm getting mine in Real Skin.  Not sure what 
I'll name him - maybe Milo?  I'll wait until he gets a face up and a wig, and then decide.

I finally finished the first two Renaissance costumes. I had hoped to take photos of them at the Ruins Gardens in Guildwood, then in the studio, so I could move on and use the girls for the next two costumes. But it was way too windy, so I just took a couple of quick photos in the backyard.

I decided that I didn't need to make a 'dressing ball' to replace Rosy's one hand after all - I just used a large S-hook to keep the elastic from shooting up inside her arm. It was a bit fidly to remove her hand and put it back on after dressing her - I could have used an extra hand of my own - but it worked perfectly, and Rosy looked beautiful in the green, especially with her long red hair....

And then there's Ryung in the dark red version....

So now I'm working on finishing the last two, and hoping to take photos some time later this week.

Don't use a flash to highlight your dolls, because in my opinion it ruins the entire feel of the photo.   Compare these two photos....

The one with flash might show the dolls better, but the photo without flash is a much nicer picture. Taking photos in such low light can be challenging because of 'camera shake' when the shutter speed gets really slow. I can shoot hand-held down to 1/8th of a second and if I take several shots I have a pretty good chance at least one will be reasonably sharp. Slower than that and I really have to use a tri-pod. So familiarize yourself with your own camera so you know how low a light you can get away with - or use a tripod.

What if you are somewhere and you want to take a doll photo and you have no choice but to shoot into the sun?  Go ahead and take it anyway, just be careful not to shoot directly into the sun (as in having the sun in your picture) because the sun is not good for your camera sensor.  It won't be a very good photo, because the doll(s) will be little more than dark silhouettes, but if you are shooting with an SLR with RAW capabilities, the image can be fixed in Photoshop. However if you just have a point-and-shoot or phone to take pictures with, the photo won't turn out very well. But maybe it's still better than nothing.

I was at the lake recently and the lake is to the south of me, so I had no choice but to shoot into the sun. Here's the photo as taken..

If you are going to be taking doll photos in the sun, the best time of day to do it is either first thing in the morning or late in the evening.  Then the sun is low in the sky so you won't get unattractive harsh shadows as you do if the sun is high overhead. The light is especially nice if there's haze on the horizon to soften the light even more. Here's Nami & Byuri first thing in the morning....

I've added a 'Guest's Creative Gallery' to showcase reader's work, on the bottom of the main Tutorials page. The photos in the new Gallery link to the Tutorial that inspired the creation. If you've made something using one of my patterns or tutorials, and want to share it with everyone, just send me an email with a photo of what you've made.

I've also decided to put all the photos I've taken of my granddaughter's dolls and ponies into an album, so they are all together in one place....

Because of the harsh shadows, midday sun, especially in summer when it's overhead, 
is something I really try to avoid, especially for doll close-ups.

Back to my Photo Tips:  I've put together a tutorial with tips on taking photos in Sunshine, but it's way too long to post here in my Blog in it's entirety, so I'm going to post it in sections, by topic. The actual thumbnail in my Tutorials section won't go live until I've posted everything here.

First up......Limiting Exposure to the Sun

Taking doll photos in sunshine can be tricky, especially considering sunshine is not good for resin. 
No one wants their dolls to turn yellow or green. In order to protect the dolls from the sun, it's important to keep them covered as much as possible. This is especially important when setting up scenes with multiple dolls. Keep the ones you haven't posed yet in their box, covered by a cloth, or shaded by an umbrella. You can also shade the dolls with your own body as you lean over to pose them...

In White Sands, New Mexico, we used the RV to shade the scene. It was early morning with the sun low in the sky, so I found a spot along an undisturbed, plowed, north-west edge of a parking lot. Jan parked right beside the 'sand bank' (like a plowed snowbank, but in White Sands they are sand).  The RV cast a big shadow, and I set up the dolls. When I was ready, Jan backed up the RV, I quickly took some photos, and then he moved forward again to put the dolls back in the shade. Here's one of the photos....

The four Renaissance gowns are presenting me with new challenges at every turn. First there wasn't enough of several of the fabrics I wanted to use, so the under-dresses had to have 'pieced' skirts. One of the skirts refused to let go of it's creases, and then the iron fought back, spilling water on the satin and making permanent stains. 

I designed the sleeves so the lower part could do up with snaps instead of lacing through eyelets, since it's so much easier to do up.  But even though I thought I added enough extra width to the bottoms of the sleeves, after all the layers of fabrics and trims, they would no longer overlap at the wrist. But I hadn't planned on using eyelets so the trims were not sewn on leaving spaces for eyelets. Okay, so the sleeves will now have snaps partway down, and the wrist will get tied shut with ribbons, which I still have to sew on.

This morning I stripped my Rosy so she could model along with Ryung. The underdress went on fine. Rosy isn't quite as large in the bust area as Ryung, so the dress fits a bit looser, but the over-dress can be laced tightly over top, so it doesn't matter.  BUT, then when I tried to put the over-dress bodice on Rosy, her one hand wouldn't go through the sleeve. I had designed the sleeve to let through Ryung's hand, but hadn't considered some other dolls of similar size have wider-spread fingers. Rosy's hand will have to come off in order for her arm to fit through the sleeve. Which means I need to design some 'dressing balls' to include with the gowns. 'Dressing balls" are wooden balls, a bit larger than the wrist opening on the lower arm, and they have an open screw-eye hook on one end and a closed screw-eye on the other. You gently pull the doll's hand, hook the 'dressing ball' into the arm elastic, remove the hand, and then dress the doll. After you are done, you pull the 'dressing ball' to expose the arm elastic, and slip the doll's hand back on.  Always something!

Anyway, here's Ryung and Rosy, both in their under-dresses, trying on a bodice with one sleeve...

The bodices won't get their edge trim and eyelets until after the over-skirts are attached. The wine and gold sleeve still needs some decorative beading and the snaps sewn on so it fits tight.