I do hope you didn’t have your hopes set on angel number 6 in the shop because he has flown away home.
We’ve been working together quite a bit lately. He’s the doll I used for my AIM details and now he’s going to be in the new header to the blog. Here we are working together this weekend. There’s me in my massive shorts and giant bikini top and him in his mediaeval garb. He was so well behaved during photography I started patting him and kissing him in a pathetically grateful way.
Dolls can be amazingly difficult. They don’t just do it to me. Years ago at the first Bears and Dolls show a photographer took my 18th century lady off to photograph and came back complaining ‘This doll kept getting her breasts out.’
I was not surprised. You would think, if you had never tried, that just taking a photo of one doll would be easy. Some are easy–ish. If they are solid painted sculptures the shadows will be a problem but the most they can do is fall over, though, to be fair, if they can, they will. Most photographers have somewhere solid as a studio floor, such as a table. I have a desk and also a photographic tent with a bouncy floor of which we will not speak. The pros then have a roll of paper on a reel above the desk and several very costly lights and diffusers positioned on stands facing the table. All the doll has to do is to stand or sit on the table and be photographed. What can go wrong?
I have spent about fifteen years helping with the photography at Miniatura and actually doing it. In the course of this I have worked with some very experienced photographers, some so pro they do album covers for rock groups, others whose job it is to photograph minis all day. Having fetched the mini from the artist in the hall, arrived at the studio with it and waited my turn I then style it for photography, which translates as I stand it on the flat bit of the roll of paper and arrange it with however many other pieces from the same artist that will make a nice picture. The photographer waits patiently until I’ve fiddled around and possibly corrects something he can see through the lens that I can’t, he does the technical stuff, takes the shot, we have a look and if it’s good, move on to the next.
If it’s a house, you put the house down and turn it till you find the good side, voila! If it’s a dresser and a table of food you fiddle till they both look good enough to eat, echo la! If it is some paintings you mess around with them flat and propped up with lumps of blu tak until they look fab, ekky thump! If it’s miniature chairs, pottery, trays of stuff, sinks, garden equipment, flower arrangements, for each and every one you compose the shot, take the shot, goodnight Vienna!
If it’s a doll you stand it in the place, it falls over, you do it again, it does it again. After three goes you sit it on a chair, on a box, whatever and as soon as you’ve got it propped up the head falls to one side, or someone comes into the room causing a draught and all the hair stands on end. So you sort all of that and raise the hand in a lifelike manner. The hand will stay until the absolute second the shutter is shutting and then fall blurrily, defingering itself on the chair arm as it goes. Dolls remove clothing as easily as a pole dancer. Hats fall off, scarves unwind, you move the doll forward, they leave their shoes behind. Artists supply them on those dreadful metal stands where they look just like a person with a metal rod up their back, so you remove it and they collapse. If someone really stupid, e.g. me, makes doll with glass eyes, in the hand the light will go in the eyes and come out again, making the eyes look real, under studio conditions the light will go in and stay there, making the eyes look like black holes. Almost anything artists do to make dolls better makes them harder to photograph. Beadwork on the dresses will photograph as spots of dirt, removable clothing will remove itself, fancy hairstyles will get caught on anything as no doll has ever had a good hair day near a camera, jewellery will look like skin blemishes at best, pock marks at worst and almost any improvement makes it harder. Dolls made of lumps of plaster? No problem! Realistically good ones like mini people? No way! I have seen really pro pros who could photograph anything reduced to early coffee breaks by dolls.
Dolls are alive and contain the spirits of the deceased, especially all the awkward deceased. So if you find you have an angel behaving like an angel, only a fool would sell him. He has flown away home and will live with me and star in photographs. It’s a great career path and I hope you find him as inspirational as I do. It’s a lovely thought that at the times when we seem most alone and stepping into the void our angel supports us. Interestingly angels are found in all religions and have been for thousands of years; it’s time one lived on a web site.
JaneLaverick.com – on the side of the angels.