Taking pictures in an apartment ?

I make some kind of backdrop using fabrics or I take them on my bed.
For the backdrops I hang some fabric from my bed (I have a high bed) and let my girl stand in front.

good luck!

 

You can make an easily stored backdrop with presentation boards (I can get them at my local dollar store for about $5). They fold up. I painted one black so it has a black and a white side; you could also certain put wallpaper or any other decoration on there. If you've got a clear spot of wall, that can make a non-distracting backdrop, particularly if it's white. A lot of BJD photography is in close-up rather than full shots anyways so the background doesn't have to be elaborate.

Especially for dolls who wear heels, you might want to consider investing in a doll stand or two.

 

Here's my setup in a 1bd apartment.


Beato in the Studio by MaxArcher, on Flickr

For a "floor", I bought a bunch of self-stick floor tiles from Home Depot and stuck them to a presentation board. (Actually half of one.)

I have a bunch of background options that I tape to the wall or whatever else is behind the "floor". For this set I used a piece of upholstery fabric, about two yards. I also use rolls of craft foam, for the "seamless" white or black backdrops, or cheap window shades and curtains from Ikea.

One change I've made with my setup since taking this picture is to put the "floor" on top of a small folding table, so that I don't have to work at such a low level.

Oh, and I always use a stand, but my GF and I have all of our dolls on stands all the time, unless they're displayed sitting on a chair or whatever.

 

You can use a table and a piece of craft store foam core. You can use the giant alligator clips to clip fabric or paper to the foamcore background. You can take a lot of close-ups.

 

Try the Sport setting on your camera for a close up. This will automatically blur the background into fuzzy shapes. It is an interesting effect and quite easy to do.

 

The real way to do this is to select Aperture Priority mode (Av on some cameras) and select the largest aperture (the smallest number), which is sort of what the camera is doing on sport mode anyway. With Aperture Priority you can ensure that the camera will pick the largest aperture, which will get the best effect, and you still have access to white balance, ISO, and other controls, as well as RAW shooting, which you generally lose in the scene modes.

 

Hi there! I live in a one BR (with den) apartment too so I try to be creative with where I take pictures - when all else fails though, I go outside!

I've used the sides of bookcases (for a dark wood grain finish), the exterior walls on my balcony, a nice beige wall with some fun lighting, my gray couch in the background of a closeup, etc. Using some photo editing really helps here - with some color and exposure adjustments. The examples about using tri-fold board are really great too.


^ Taken on my balcony against the exterior wall.


^ That's my couch in the background XD


^ White tri-fold board

There are more examples but I'll keep it to these for the sake of not monster-posting.

 

If it's a closeup picture where you can -crop- part of it. I've found that the cheapest method was to prop a printer paper behind the area of the doll that you're going to photograph. Quick fix for a backdrop in a pinch.

If you have a laptop or a pc in general you can use parts of it as backdrop. Meaning. You can always abuse random items and angles to make for neat backgrounds. Like mashing up a scarf behind your doll. Propping that scarf on a book or copybook and see what effect that makes.

I've seen someone on DA mash up Aluminum foil and prop it against her wall or some other item. Then she made it so that the focus was on the doll and the background was blurred. I could have never guessed it was Aluminum till I saw the tutorial for it.

She also made it so that her desk lamp was lighting the foil, so the aluminum gave this shiny lights effects as if the doll was standing in city lights. (The shot was also taken in complete darkness)

My advice? Imagination is the limit. Even if you don't have professional items, think of the entire room with it's belonging as the canvas. Using old jewelry or cheap jewelry for instance on a surface
and taking a picture of your doll infront of it.

What else.. I have a personal -cheat- that I use. Get a stock photo on deviantart, where the artist has allowed their art to be used for stock! Put the doll infront of your laptop/pc screen with that photo on full screen, and shoot. Crop the parts where the laptop/pc shows. >_> This works for lots of things and makes for interesting backdrops in a pinch also. Hope that's useful.

 

I also live in a one bedroom apartment
I honestly resort to just shooting a ton of portraits or waist up shots.


As far as standing on carpet - cheat XD Lean your doll up against a wall! I always end up doing that... and then never actually take photos of their feet .-.

I've also used my kitchen table.
this is a bad example (as it was just to show off the bed quick XD and nothing of artistic value), but if I would have cropped in tighter, and not shot the left side of the table and gotten the gap and the light switch 8D, then it could have looked like a hardwood floor.



Another tip I have is to abuse shallow depth of field if your camera can go pretty low.

It's really hard to find a place where there isn't /stuff/ in my apartment, so I've honestly just left it there and did my best to just turn it into pretty boke XD

No lie, there are guitar hero guitars in the top right corner XD just not visible from the blurring. I also added a vignette in photoshop. There was also a chair back there as well. But they just look like dark blobs.


another example with a couch and a bedspread in the background.


shot on my window sill:



Honestly if you just keep in close, shoot near a window that you have, and either use shallow depth of field to put everything in the background out of focus, or put something in the background to block the mess, then you're going to be OK


Also, do you have a porch or a deck?
I have a TINY little deck that's about 4ft X 6ft and I shoot out there CONSTANTLY.
I'm sure my photos get a little repetitive, but It's my favorite place to shoot XD

 

I guess I can put in my two cents hehe..

I don't live in an apartment but my house just doesn't have much to offer in the way of places to take pictures inside.. usually I will drape a shirt or something across boxes for backdrops.. find a corner that I can stick some props in and then grab a lamp for some lighting help..

Although you mentioned not being able to stand your dolls up on carpet, and I kinda understand.. most of my shots are feetless lol, and some because if they are barefoot, they don't like to stand so I lean them on things (another big disadvantage is that the carpet is bright blue so it just looks strange and is really hard to get rid of in photoshop!)

I think other people have had good examples and suggestions about buying backdrops and pieces of floor to help with decoration and even standing.. I think if you had a fairly flat and non-battered piece of board, then the dolls would have no problem standing up on it.. my main suggestion would probably be to see if you can get the dolls outside at all. I know, if you're like me, that your outdoors around your place probably aren't very exciting but the natural lighting definitely beats being indoors, your dolls should stand lol, and i'd guess that there is something that can serve as a backdrop, even if you blur it later.

 

You can also get a wood-grained shelf from Home Depot that looks like a wood floor. I've used the top from an old desk I dismantled. A 2' x 4' cheapo fold-up table makes a great staging area off the floor. Some have woodgrained tops, others are padded, and you can clamp a piece of anything rigid to the top.

Lengths of fabric make great backgrounds, and additional lengths or strips can add visual interest. Old curtains over a cluttered wall, with some backlight shining through them can fake a window. If you don't have any hooks in the wall (those new removal hooks are great for holding a rod, and do come off clean!), check for old music stands at garage sales or clearance racks. A little duct tape juryrigging makes them handy for holding backgrounds or additional light sources.

Tri-fold foamcore board, those "convention/presentation" things are great. You can cover them with draped fabric or put colored papers on them, or even add fake wall decor to them. Or use them for bounce light, like single foamcore sheets. And everything folds away when not needed! I don't live in a small apartment, but keeping a reserved area is still hard, so things that fold away for storage are appreciated.

 

I'm not trying to hijack the thread, but I think this would fall under the same category as the original question. What does everyone do for lighting? I saw a softbox in a picture above... but I am wondering about "homemade" lighting. Flash can be really harsh or inappropriate for the picture's mood. Even when shooting with a really open aperture and high ISO, I get dark pictures inside my house. By accident I discovered (in my dorm room of all places) my study lamp gives off a white-ish light which looks natural in photos. It's not yellow like the lights in my house. I think it has something to do with the energy efficient bulb. I'm not sure of the wattage. Any suggestions or ideas?
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Wow there's a lot of good advice here! I'm in the same boat when it comes to photographing my artwork, and since I'm getting my first doll soon I was wondering how to photograph her in a messy apartment.

I love the idea of using a wooden shelf or a table as a "hard wood floor". Thanks!

 

Celoestila, it's not the type of bulb that determines the "color", but its "temperature". Look on bulb boxes for a set of numbers that have a degree sign and a K right after them. (I can't find the degree circle on my phone here.). White light os rated in degrees Kelvin. The yellow, traditional nighttime light bulb is about 2700 degrees K. The base standard is 5000 K, which is the color of noon sunlight. Anything lower than that shifts towards the yellow. Ott brand craft bulbs are rated at 6000K, which makes them give a decidedly bluish cast. You can get "soft white/reveal" bulbs rated as 3200, 3800, or even 4200K, but its best to try and get as close to 5000K as possible.

The benefit of using the coiled fluorescent screw-in bulbs is that you can get only a 20 watt bulb that will give the equivalent of 75 watts of light. Because of tbe lower wattage, you can get inexpensive clip on lamps or even hanging or clamping pet reflectors for adding extra light sources to a dark space.

 

Biggest and best tip I can give: DAYLIGHT. It is our friend.

 

Daylight helps a whole ton for sure, especially if your camera doesn't have special settings to reduce yellowing in lighting. To get specific shadows though, you can use a cheap desk lamp and then adjust the contrast and exposure in Photoshop or some other photo manipulating program. I live in a 1 BR apartment myself and my only choices for settings are white drywall, beige carpet and some nasty tile, so I improvise and use whatever large chunk of solid color I can find, whether it be in fabric or furniture. Anything but using my messy living space as a backdrop!

For example, these were taken in a black bookshelf I had lying around. This first one, I took out the shelving, turned it over, laid a black sheet inside, stood my lamp on a stack of books and shot.


For these two I simply took the shelves out and left it as it was.




And these were from back at my old house by draping fabric over sunlit windows or the back of a couch. The trick is to focus on close, dramatic angles that crop out the edges of your teeny-tiny backdrop.




Simple, but interesting props also enhance blank backgrounds and add a lot to a photo too. Just use random stuff you've got lying around. You'd be amazed at what you can do with miscellaneous props.
This one was taken using white posterboard taped to a wall and the floor with a whole bunch of wires to old electronics we had collecting dust in a drawer.



Half of the time, my prettiest photos are taken in the blandest corners of my apartment and you'd never guess it! Just play around with your surroundings. c:

 

My partner and I live in a one bedroom apartment with almost no direct sun at any time of the year. With little storage space that isn't already taken up by dolls or doll accessories, we take all of our photos in the same spot. My former drafting table does triple duty as jewelry workbench, doll customizing space and photography platform. Can't use the floor because the cats will invariably rampage through any setup. For photography, I just hang a backdrop of fabric behind my doll using a collapsible framework that I made out of brass rod and lamp parts which clamps to the tabletop. It all breaks down into straight pieces that I can store upright in a corner. For lighting, I use two cheap swing-arm clamp-on desk lamps with ordinary GE Reveal bulbs that I can fold up and tuck under my materials cabinet. Sometimes I tape some tracing paper over the reflector shades to diffuse the light.

For something like this shot, I just grabbed random stuff from around the house and turned it into a late night set. Two kinds of fabric are draped over the frame and I safety pinned the little frame to the shawl.


You can also set your doll on a table and just shoot from the waist up so that he looks like he's in scale with his background. It works better if you can get the larger percentage of the room on the other side of the doll from you, much like real estate interior photos are always taken from some impossible corner where you'd never actually stand so that the space looks larger.


Or you can go for dramatic chiaroscuro closeups and keep your background dark with only a single light source on your doll.


None of these shots required me to pay the slightest bit of attention to aperture (or at least, I didn't), I just concentrated on composition and realistic posing.

 

I live in a one bedroom as well, and boy is it messy! It's tough taking my dolly on a photoshoot, at home or out, but when I have a little bit of time, I snap a few shots in my living room! Here are a few examples.

This was taken in my old apartment, actually.

This was for a thread based on no joint surrealism.


They may not be the best photos, but I'm sure I only feel that way because I have yet to put photoshop to these.
Also, try finding a nice place to lean your doll, she may stand up nicely!


Is it cheating if she doesn't have feet? The shoes don't fit her any other way. Heh!
Anyways, I hope this helps, and that inspiration comes to you!

 

Fantastic thread!!! So helpful I am full of ideas
Thank you guys so much for your helpful examples