Photostory perferences? Which is more enjoyable?

I prefer simple: little or no dialogue, with breathtaking photos.

 

Fluff because I have a short attention span and fluff makes me smile.

 

I like both, but long running things more, if they are well done and I like the characters. Though silliness is fun too.

And as for pix, I like stuff not photoshopped. I'd rather see the doll's natural beauty and the photographer's talent than a bunch of special effects

 

I'm all about character. Strong personalities will catch and hold my attention better than anything. Also, the author's sense of timing is crucial. If the story flows as it would in real-time, with each picture taking the same amount of time as the next, it's a much more enjoyable read.

... I do also tend to check out anything with a Soom doll in the cast, because I have long had a weakness for Soom. ^^;

 

sillyness, most of mine are, but rely a lot on people knowing the characters so usually go unnoticed on bigger forums (such as this) either that or people don't get my jokes/references
romance does little for me (being a guy, I don't like yaoi)
a lot of anime is still unknown to me, so a lot of anime-themed ones are as well way over my head

 

I like pretty much everything when it comes to story, from fluff to serious drama.
The only thing that really bugs me is when people photoshop big comic speech bubbles onto the photos, the don't blend into the photos the same way they do for drawn comics, so I find it really distracting. I usually won't look through those ones.

 

I like fluffy ones and the longer, serialized ones. I'm less interested in romance stories or the ones with pictures and poetry. Not my thing.
Oh! And I like seeing box openings with the other dolls in it/helping as well. It helps make the opening different from all the others.

But I am in awe any time somebody takes the time & effort to make a photostory, and I love looking through them.

 

I have to say the ones with little or no dialogue, with quality of photographs given priority over storyline. But I also like plot twists.

 

I prefer comedy and long-running series since, well for most drama-filled photostories I can't seem to take them seriously as the writer had intended (although, some of their stories were good).

 

I prefer silent photostories with a more serious theme
Also, the quality of the photos helps.

 

Guilty of this too.
That said, I prefer photostories which focus on pictures rather than text. For genres, I like comedy, drama (with lots of Angst please!^^), and romance (here preferably the darker, more complicated stuff, possibly with a sensual touch)... and I also love cute, innocent, fairy-tale like stories with kids as characters!

 

If the pictures are beautiful I'm flexible about what I'll enjoy seeing. I tend to shy away from the romance, especially yaoi though since they are often full of cliches and twilight-esque teenage angst. There have been a few in the gallery+ that have been gorgeous and well done though. For those reasons I'll usually click on something with a small/cute doll first or something with a funny title. Comedy is usually fun and it's hard to mess up adorable.

 

I like comedy/nonsense, because that way, I don't really have to follow a storyline to enjoy it. I like them on the shorter side, also.

I also like good photos that really shows what's going on. I also like it when the text is in the photo rather than having colored text below the photo. A lot of times, I see colored text that is supposed to represent each doll's character, but sometimes it's hard to remember which doll belongs to which color - especially if I can't tell sculpts apart. Most of the time, telling me that 'this' doll is a Shiwoo does me no good, especially if your Shiwoo looks drastically different from most others. That's why I like having text in the photos, at least near or right under the dolls.

But good photos are a definite plus; if I see three dolls standing in front of a desk that don't look like they're doing anything, I can't be expected to know what's going on.

A lot of members take photos that do show emotions or behaviors well. I tend to look at Mistula's "Fully Articulated" blog as a great example of how a photostory should be.

 

In a photostory I think the photo's themselfs are very important.
They need to be beautiful, with good light and a good quality.
The story is important too, but I prefer nice pics with a lame story, to the other way around.

 

I prefer no dialouge with expressive photos, I love looking at photos of dolls most of all, so Im not really into a story or dialouge.

 

I like the funny and cute ones best. They're the ones that keep me coming back for sure. I don't need breathtaking photos, just average ones where I can see everything with ease are fine.

I also tend to avoid the romance photo stories.

 

I'm the demanding one: I like beautiful photos and a compelling story. I can't read anything that makes me feel like I'm checking it over for grammatical and syntactical errors, and not so good photos can take away a lot from a doll's natural beauty. But I don't like static uber "artsy" photos that make it hard to figure out what's happening either. My favourite photo stories have simple, elegant, beautiful photography and clear, absorbing plot lines without an overabundance of dialogue.

 

I'm another one that prefers silent photostories with quality (content & literal image quality) photos. But if there is dialogue involved, I like a well done comic-book style setup vs. a photos followed by dialogue captions setup.

As for content, I like a lot of different types of stories: dark, moody, comedy, romantic, sexy, dramatic. I'm not big on just cute for the sake of fluffy cuteness in photostories, though I do enjoy cute doll photos in general.

 

I like fairy tale go wrong, Haha

 

I like all types of stories, as long as they're well written, well photographed, and have an actual plot line. Content can vary, but I love a bit of humor.

I don't like long stories full of basically the same photo over and over, stories where you have a hard time matching up the character with his/her dialogue, excessive photoshopping trying to be clever, or stories that tell you when they should be showing you (these are photostories, after all).

 

I prefer tongue-in-cheek humor, stories (or at least storytellers) that don't take themselves too seriously.

 

Comedy, most definitely! I just love seeing people have a sense of humor in any hobby.

 

I do like the longer photo stories because of the developing plots & characters - but that's assuming that there is a plot &/or character development that's interesting. Decent photography & a talent for writing dialogue is appreciated as well - there are several long running little doll dramas I am just hooked on

 

This probably comes from being a comic book fan, but I really like it when people take the time to edit the words onto their photos rather than just plain text below them. I feel plain text distracts from the photos.

Here's examples of text edited into the photos:
http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?519674-%26%2310083%3B%26%239812%3B%26%2310084%3BDreaming-Lotus%26%2310084%3B%26%239812%3B%26%2310083%3B-Part-1-(Spiritdoll-Firson)

This is a very nicely done story too: http://www.denofangels.com/forums/showthread.php?524744-The-Darkest-Tale-of-Snow-White-lots-of-dolls

 

Crimsoncat: that second one is yummy! Thanks for the link.

Oh wow. I love photostories. Been a comic book reader and professional for most of my life and a novelist for the last thirty years, so for me, storytelling is really important.

Specifically? Hmmm....I like photostories that take advantage of the strengths of the dolls involved. Thinking about it, I'll skim through a new one and if all the photos are basically the same thing, I'm outta there. For that, you could use a B*#B*@. BJD stands for ball jointed doll. It's what truly sets them apart. More to the point, I've yet to see a talking heads story where the plot/dialogue is really strong enough to carry it. BJDs don't have a lot of facial expression (duh!) so expression really depends on body language.

I'm tolerant of grammatical mistakes if it's obvious English is a second language. If it's not, well, I'm probably out of there.

Prefer the dialogue/narration in the photo itself, but don't want it to overwhelm. I don't want the first thing I notice 2b the word balloons. I've chosen the white on black in strips on the edges for my own stories simply because my time is limited and it's proven a quick and simple way to clearly tell the story while leaving the image dominant. Composing an image, then sacrificing the bulk of it to word balloons kinda drove me nuts when I was doing the graphic novel and is worse here where I'm dealing with a panel at a time rather than an entire page.

I prefer humor and situation over romance because, frankly, most doll-sex is even sillier looking than the real thing! Though there are definitely those (rare) photographers who pull intimate interactions off beautifully, so I'll click and check. If it involves dolls with awkward hands and stiff bodies, I'll likely lose interest quickly. To those making this type of story: S-curves are your friend!

In stories as well as photos: resin-kids who actually look as if they're interacting. Again, it comes down to that posability thing that BJDs bring to the equation, and probably why I prefer stories about the little guys who are, indeed, much better posers than the big guys. There are a handful of photostories that really bring the big guys to life, so it can be done, and I'm always delighted to find one that does.

Good photography is great, but story to me carries a touch of realism and perfect lighting and spot focus in pic after pic is actually distracting to me. It's like someone whose writing style has superseded his/her story.

Yipes. I'm writing a novel. Sorry!

Mostly, I wish I had more time so I could actually check them all out. I know how much work people put into them, and wish I had time to thank them all!

 

I like minimal dialogue, if any. I love it when stories can be told through visuals alone. (They're photo stories after all...)

As for length, I'm more of a sucker for execution than the actual genre. Make me laugh, cry, think... get me to feel something and I'm a happy camper ^_^

If there's something that "makes or breaks" a photostory for me, it would be posing, especially eyes. Sometimes the body language is there but the eyes are "deer in the headlights" or seem to be staring in the wrong direction. This takes me out of stories a lot which is a shame.

 

I agree with what you said about liking romance and drama and yaoi but I do not like any of the comedy photos stories I find they can be a bit too tacky at times and I just prefer the heavy drama or the sad ones I love the sad ones they just have a lot of emotion in them and when they're done well they can be very powerful!

 

I like funny and/ or cute ones that aren't too long.

 

I like funny with great pics and clever dialogue. I am a great fan of Vindalootoo's series of photostories about Wiishu. My dollies are all campaigning for"Wiishu Fan Club" T-shirts!