I wanted to take some 'village' shots for my story, and the only place I could think of in Canada where there might be some building that looked the right period would be in Quebec. So on our fall trip we went to the picnic area that juts out into the St. Lawrence River on the south shore east of Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies in Quebec. We actually took photos there twice. The first morning it was very sunny, which doesn't make for the best photos, but I took a set anyways. Then the following day we went again and set up the scene again and I took a second set of photos. This time we used our projector stand to give some extra surface area to the picnic table so that we could set up both tents, and I set up the scene....
I took the photos at the doll's eye level making sure the church steeple was clearly in the background.
It was quite overcast and the doll's faces were quite dark, and I'd forgotten to bring a white card, so Jan used the white photography umbrella to bounce some light onto the doll's faces...
it was very windy, and we needed a way to secure the tents. They do have loops along the bottom for tent pegs to be stuck into the ground, but one can't poke a tent peg into a solid surface - like a picnic table. So we emptied out the RV pantry of every available can, and placed the heaviest ones on the main tent pole stand, and the rest inside the tent on top of the tent pegs. The cans work very nicely, and are invisible until it's time to take everything down....
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Inside the RV
So, where do we store all the dolls and props in the RV you ask? Well our RV, at 22' (7m), is the smallest size RV that has an actual bed permanently in the back. During the day the box with the larger props, and the horses stand on the bed. The two large tents fit inside each other and are suspended from an overhead compartment handle...
The RV has a lot of interior storage, and the cupboards over the back bed are where the dolls go. Years ago I made special doll boxes with stuffed cushions inside to safely and securely hold a doll for travel. The boxes fit three high in the overhead compartments there. The boxes get new labels each trip for whatever dolls are coming along. During the day if there's a photo shoot, the boxes come down and get stored on the bed, and they get put away again in the evening. The horses and prop box end up out of the way on the front seats at night.
the Tavern
I had been looking for an old stone building in the villages along the St. Lawrence in Quebec to pass as the outside of a Medieval Tavern, and we ended up at the old mill in Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies.
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Up at the back where there was a stone wall along the driveway on which the dolls could stand..
The inside of the tavern was a set up at home on my dining room table...
Then with the candles lit, the photos were taken down at the doll's eye level....
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