Doll photographers and usage

Doll photography is very much a niche market.

A few years back I had a small gallery show where I displayed
some of my doll photos. A small group of people liked them but
the great majority of viewers found them creepy or disturbing.
In the photo art group that I belonged to several of the members
told me that when they were judging my doll photos they had to
explicitly overcome negative feelings from the subject material.

On the plus side, it's a marvelous way to explore portrait lighting.
The dolls are infinitely patient while you experiment with light
placement and attempt different lighting ratios.

Normally dolls are only one avenue of photography that I explore.
In this pandemic year nearly all of my photography has been of my
dolls.

Here is a single example of a formal portrait of one of my girls.

Kaede - Portrait by Tom Beach, on Flickr

 

I did it the other way around, started with doll photography and then did cosplay photography and such as well. I wouldn't say that it made a difference one way or another, in the end it's all photography.

By now I just do doll/toy photography though. Humans mean you need to all have time and energy at the same time...and they have expectations
Dolls are just easier.

But it's not my profession or anything.

 

I photograph my dolls to 'share' them with others in the doll community. My photography is limited to just my dolls and gives me another avenue to enjoy them. I am not a good photographer, but I still enjoy it.

 

Photography is a major part of the hobby for me. I can't imagine doll collecting without photography or photography without dolls.
I wouldn't presume to try it professionally although I like to think I have improved somewhat over the last ten years.
I have had some of my pics used without my permission which generally doesn't really bother me, except for the recasters on eBay who are using my Humpty-Dumpty shots.
Anyway, it started when I was a kid and loved to dress up my (original) Barbie. I always wanted to "save" the beauty of her and would even ask my Dad, who was the only one in the family who ever took photos, to take a picture of her, but they were always long distance, black-and-white, and not very satisfying.
So now I can do it myself!

 

Generally doll photography is done by the owner or a friend/family member of the owner. I had a doll friend who had a hard time getting her camera to focus, for example, so her daughter was the unofficial photographer of both their doll collections. I photograph my wife’s dolls frequently because I have access and I’m more into photography than she is.

Personally, I learned a lot more about photography because of dolls than I probably would have if I’d just been snapping shots of my cats or my cosplays the way I did before I started collecting. I certainly never dreamed I’d have big feelings about aperture or white balance, but here we are. They’re skills I can turn back around to photographing other things, and now I’m just very enthused about photography in general, so it’s all good.

 

It was my photography that drew me to dolls.
My wife is a doll collector and I was taking pictures of
her dolls and one day I told her that it would be a lot
more fun if the dolls posed better and she said "Well
there are jointed dolls"

 

I did landscape and floral photography long before I got my first dolls... Once I *did* get them, putting them in front of the camera too just seemed like a natural extension of my existing hobby. They're much more cooperative models than my nephews, it turns out.