Foreign tips to look beautiful?

Anyone have any photography tips for making dolls look more "real"?

• I collect dolls and make clothing for them. They are mostly dolls under 12 inches like Barbie, Bratz and Liv dolls. I really want to take some photos that look realistic. I want it to look like they are super models in a fashion magazine like Elle or Vogue. I also want them to look realistic and as close to real people as possible. I have looked at a lot of magazines but I am having trouble making the photos look the way I want. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? How can I build better sets and backgrounds? What are the basics of photography? What kind of lighting should I use indoors that looks natural? Does anyone have any tips for taking 'clean' and professional looking photos? How can I work with what I have without buying a new camera or some expensive lighting fixture? Any tips, links or websites would be helpful!

• Answer:

  I would start with the book "Light: Science and Magic" (link below). This helps you understand the principles of light, and how to manipulate it to get the effects you want. You can use plain incandescent bulbs and some sort of diffusing material (like fabric or paper) to help the light look bigger. You'll find that lighting is going to be the biggest thing that affects how realistic the dolls look. You want to avoid hot spots that give the tell-tale signs that the "skin" is plastic. The other side of the coin is that you really do need a stable support like a tripod, or photo bean bag. You can mount your camera (even many point and shoot cameras can be mounted on a tripod) on to the support to take your pictures. Set the camera up with a remote or use the delay feature on your camera so that you don't get vibrations from pressing the shutter in your picture. The rest is up to you. Composition, color schemes, etc. all have a role to play. You'll have a lot of limitations with how the dolls can be posed, but you can work with it. My daughter is very creative with posing her dolls and taking pictures (such as Ken and Barbie performing ballet). I've given her my old tripod and film camera, and she's done quite well with natural light coming in from the windows. She experimented with a white box I put together using foam board, white duct tape, and clip-on work lights available at home depot. The white box gave a nice even lighting.