Okay, so you want to take photos of your dolls looking like they are in a room inside, but you don't want to go to the trouble of making, nor have the room to store, doll-size vignettes or room settings. So I use the trick of 'forced perspective' to make certain places in my house work as backgrounds for my doll photos. Most often used is my kitchen. I have a peninsula counter on which I place a box, and then pose the dolls on top.
The trick is to raise the doll high enough so her eyes are almost level with your's, then using a tripod (because of the low light) shoot almost straight, watching the level of things in the background. Here's the photo taken with the set-up above....
Here's another scene set up in the same spot and ready to photograph....
And the resulting photo, taken a bit from above, like an adult looking
down on children working at the counter.
down on children working at the counter.
I've also positioned the dolls on a box or small table on top of my kitchen table.....
In this case the dolls are posed on an angle to the light coming in from the windows, so I'm
using a white card on their dark side, but more on white cards later. Here's the photo....
using a white card on their dark side, but more on white cards later. Here's the photo....
My kitchen isn't the only room I've used for a background. I've used the bookcases in my family room as a 'library'. Again, the doll needed to be elevated so she was at a eye level....
I stacked two nestling tables on top of each other, and posed Elin on top, then cleared off all the shelves in the background. After all many of my dolls stand on that drop-down 'bar', and nothing would ruin the effect of 'scale' more than having other dolls in the background. Here's the result....
Another photo taken in roughly the same spot.....
And here's an 'accidental' forced perspective photo. I was just changing camera angles to make the background work behind the dolls, and in this one photo it looks like the two taller girls are actually sitting on the sofa. They aren't, but because their tushies are just at the right level as they'd be if they were sitting, and the two smaller girls and the fabric are hiding their knees, it does give that impression. I think the lighting and the fact that the sofa is in focus also helps the illusion...
RSS Feed
