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Fun question.

Wiishu and Pooki just are. They're in our life and travel about the house and country with us, so they (and their various pets, toys and accoutrement) get photographed as "setabouts" quite frequently. They just claim they have a purpose, wherever they are. Not sure what will happen with the ones I have on order arrive, but I won't be making many sets or setting up fancy lighting systems. That's too much like work. I make no attempt to fool the eye/camera that they are other than they are, little tiny guys hanging out in our world.

 

Usually, I try to keep my doll photos "in character" for them, as I think of my doll characters as being average people, not dolls in a human world. But sometimes, I will just randomly take pictures of them, especially if they're posed in a cute way or they're just hanging out while I do other stuff.

 

I suck at photography and pretty much never take pictures of my dolls, but I DO tend to put them alongside my plushies in normal circumstances. I think I kinda treat my BJDs more as dolls/toys than a lot of collectors do, though. They're definitely more for playing with than for displaying/viewing as art pieces to me. Just like my plushies, I enjoy cuddling and arranging them, and they go on shelves and tables rather than in display cases, etc.

I would love to see your boy alongside your anime pillows and plushies!

 

I have most of my dolls set up on shelves like a group of people in a room. Leon, the doll in my avatar, travels with me and spends a lot of time as a tiny cat boy in a much bigger world. I take pictures of him in all sorts of settings- by my drink in a restaurant, with table decorations in a hotel room, on a fence in my neighborhood. I have a idea of making a book/blog as a travel log for all the places he's been.

 

Majority of the time, I got my dolls hanging out with my figures (majority are nendoroids but not all) and various cute animal plushes. so feel like I probably fall into the "they are pricy customizable toys" category for me?

 

I'm also one of the few that suck at photography within this hobby. I wish I could take nicer photos, but I suck at setting lights, settings scenes, etc. I'm also a klutz, and almost killed my camera a few times in the past sixteen years. I've managed to completely damage the lens, so it's a complete miracle, I can still take photos with it -- I suck so hard taking photos with my cellphone, so I rarely try with it. I don't think of my dolls as people however, I am just lazy to place stuff next to them when I'm taking photos of them. I don't have any plushies on my bed, although did hoard them at a point in my life, I don't like keeping stuff on my bed (I am an insomniac as is, so I rather keep it uncluttered).

When I got into these dolls by accident, I discovered them through Volks 12" fashion doll line Dollfie -- there were a few Japanese customizers I followed through their blogs (later on I found a few of them on Flickr, and one actually followed me back! I almost swallowed my tongue when I saw that). They always took photos of their custom or repainted dolls next to fake flowers, or just flowers in the background. I was always tempted to try something like that with my BJD, but most are so large, I don't know how well that would work out. I would do so now if I wasn't a complete lazy old-bum, who has lost all hope of ever taking nice photos. DX


TLDR; I don't mind if my dolls look like models (real life people, CGI, etc.), or toys, I just take photos of most of my toys mainly to keep a record of them, for when my mind starts to go (further) down hill. (:

 

My dolls are new to me but they already share space with some of our stuffed animal collection and I pick them up to play with more than I take pictures of them. I do take some silly pictures for friends but mostly they're just a different type of toy I guess. I do love seeing really pretty pictures that make dolls look like real people or pictures of dolls in a scene, though.

 

I sometimes photograph Vince as a doll, since his character is 'living doll (good, not evil)'. Actually I guess in that sense I ALWAYS photograph him as a doll, even when I take pictures where everything is in scale to him... but he's the one who will get posed with things that aren't in-scale, or on a shelf, or with random other toys around him.

 

Mine are displayed on shelves and in cabinets with my other bears and dolls, and 99% of the pitures I take of them they're not in any from of realistic setting, just snapshots of wherever they happen to be at the time with full sized items around them. For example this picture from yesterday of one of my girls trying on a dress I'm making her:


Teddy

 

Unfortunately, I have mine sectioned in a closet container. I don't have shelf space for them and I have 3 young grandchildren. They can climb.
For right now they have to stay safe, coming out one at a time for visits.