Muki.Dorifuto.com Photography, Motorcycles, Anime and a Dog…

Doll Meet

My significant other and my housemate are interested in dolls. Yes, dolls. Dressing them up, posing them, taking pictures, creating photostories, you name it.

I think people should pursue hobbies on the side. I think that's a healthy thing to do so that you're not buried in your work, even if what you do for work is what you love. I don't know much about dolls as it isn't my hobby, but there are a lot of different things to learn about them. I don't think I have the interest or wallet to delve much further into them though. Up until recently I considered dolls to be a strange, strange hobby. I could understand the concept of people buying cars, photographing them, modifying them and racing them, but to me that seemed to have a functional purpose. At the end of the day, you could take them out racing. You could drive from A to B.

With dolls, I wasn't so sure. They seemed to end up sitting around. It wasn't until I considered that it falls under collector's hobby that I really got my head around it. Sometimes, that's the whole point of having a hobby. There are stamp collectors who could tell you an entire story about how a certain stamp was made, who it was sent to, where it originated from. Antique collectors will provide you with a whole history, from why certain materials were used and from which families it was passed down from. A hobby doesn't have to be functional, it just has to be interesting and each person has different interests.

So, back to dolls. Today was the opportunity to shoot something different. When your doll is significantly smaller than your usual subjects, your perspective suddenly changes. I generally use a 70-200mm lens for portraits, but the size of dolls changes everything. Normally with wedding photography, I'll try and capture the finer details. These are now even harder due to the tiny scale of things and I kept finding myself wanting a macro lens of sorts. It's ironic, but a small sensor, but high resolution point and shoot could probably outdo my current gear at taking those shots. Something like the Panasonic LX3 would do really well.

I'm not sure which doll community organised the meet (as I was brought along by my significant other and have next to no knowledge of dolls), but I'm going to assume it was Den of Angels.The meet was organised though The Faireground forums. Have a look there if you'd like more information.

Anyway, below are the photos I took from the day. As I am not familiar with the owner of the dolls themselves, I am happy to remove any offending images on request. Each photo has had basic corrections in Lightroom, but no Photoshop manipulation.