Doll Stands on a Hard Surface

So, what do you do if you don't trust your doll to stand on it's own on a hard surface?  Or you are posing several dolls in a scene and don't want to risk them toppling each other over like a set of dominos?  I use the standard metal doll stands for most of my doll photos. I hide the top under their clothes, and pay attention to positioning the vertical support behind one of the doll's legs, and then I try to hide the base. If I can't hide the base, I can always Photoshop it out later, but it's so much easier, and more natural-looking, to just hide the base right away when taking the photo.

Even when taking photos in my backyard on my picnic table, I will camouflage the bases of the stands with some sand the same colour as the wood of the table....as I did here.....
Can you see the doll's bases?

One of the best examples of hiding the doll base, is the series of photos I took of Isar in the Southwest back in 2012. The US Southwest is mostly rock - lots of bare rock - red, yellow, or white rock. There was no way I'd risk Isar falling onto rock, or tumbling into a canyon, so I always posed her on her doll stand and covered the base with a bit of sand or small stones the same colour as the rock she was standing on.  See if you can spot the covered doll stand base...... 

Isar in the Beartooth Mountains, Montana

Isar in the Badlands of South Dakota

Isar overlooking Schaefer Canyon, Canyonlands, Utah

Isar overlooking 'Park Avenue', Arches Nat Pk, Utah

Isar at Lake Powell, Arizona

Isar at the Grand Canyon, Arizona

In this next setting, I had to balance her doll stand on top of some rocks, 
then hide the base with small matching stones....

Isar at Clark's Forks River, into Yellowstone,Wyoming

I use this same technique of hiding the base of the doll stands when taking photos of my dolls in the snow......

If you look closely, you can see a bit of the vertical support peaking out behind Efreet's one leg 
(pants aren't that straight), and there's also a bit of base showing in front of one of his shoes. 

Here's another photo with the doll's stands hidden with snow.....

Of course, now that you know my secret, you'll be looking for that bit of sand, dirt, or disturbed snow around the feet of the dolls in my photos.  I'll bet you never even noticed it until I told you about it.  It's a great way to take photos of your dolls outside without worrying about them toppling over and getting damaged (unless it's very windy, but that's another story) 

So why not give it a try?