5 backgrounds ideas for Doll Photography

Pros

✅ It has a very cool aesthetic

✅ It’s very powerful graphically

✅ You can play with the color palette easily

✅ It allows you to focus more on the pose and the doll aesthetics

✅ With few elements (only doll and backdrop) you already have an interesting picture

Cons

❌ Aesthetics is more important than telling a story

❌ Its minimalism may not appeal to many

❌ It seems easy but its complexity lies in a good lighting and composition

Tips

🔹 You must focus your attention on the lights and the composition to make it look good. I recommend using either a super soft and diffused light (for example, natural light on a cloudy day) or direct light with well defined shadows (I personally prefer the first option).

🔹 Make the background color match the doll or her clothes. Look for color palettes and get inspired by graphic arts for an eye catching result.

🔹 Play with the composition. Don’t be afraid to play with negative spaces (everything that isn’t your doll): think that it’s a purely aesthetic image.

Pros

✅ The possibilities and combinations of backgrounds, elements and poses are endless

✅ There’s no need to fear for our dolls, they won’t fall lol

✅ It’s really easy to control the decorative elements because they stay where you put them, we won’t need stands or threads (thanks, gravity!)

✅ You’re working in a “2D environment”, so you don’t have to worry (so much) about depth

Cons

❌ You need to buy elements to create new compositions (flowers, miniatures, backgrounds, various decoration…)

❌ It may take longer than you planned: you take the photo, you see something that’s not well placed, you change it, and so on until you get the result you want.

❌ It is a very static kind of photo

Tips

🔹 Don’t stay half way through: either do not put decorative elements or put a lot of them.

🔹 If you use a lot of elements, fill the background up to beyond the edges of the photo, this way it will look like there’s many more.

🔹Distribute them in an interesting way. There are many composition rules but in the end, the most important thing is that YOU like it. This is what makes it YOUR photo and not somebody else’s photo.

Pros

✅ You don’t need a lot of space at home to store the sets

✅ Easy to assemble and disassemble

✅ It’s cheaper than a real diorama

✅ You focus the viewer’s attention on the doll, and also having a context for her (not as the plain color background)

Cons

❌ It’s not as realistic as a full diorama

❌ Assembling and disassembling the set can get tiresome

Tips

🔹 Blur the background a bit: you will create some depth and also hide the flaws of the simplicity of the set. You can do it either with the camera, with a wide aperture (f/2.8, f/1.8, or even f/4, depending on the light and the placement of the elements), or later by editing the photo.

🔹 Add some extra miniatures and decorations to enrich the scene and add some context.

🔹Create your own backgrounds, like this one I made using only tracing paper and black masking tape. Super easy, foldable and also plays with the light by being translucent:

Pros

✅ This is a fun way to enter the world of lighting, understand how light works and how the camera perceives it.

✅ The results will never be boring

✅ With certain backlights (for example LEDs) you can get the famous bokeh effect

Cons

❌ The difficulty is a little higher than in the previous photo backgrounds

❌ Not getting the desired effect can be frustrating

Tips

🔹 If you’re going to try this type of background, take it as a game. That way you don’t limit yourself in any way and you experiment freely.

🔹 Try to keep your dolls correctly exposed (that is, neither too light nor too dark) compared with the background. For this, you can use a reflector, to redirect part of the light, or another light source.

Pros

✅ You can create the image you want, literally

✅ There are cheaper and even free alternatives to this program like Gimp

✅ You can learn to edit photos easily thanks to the thousands of online tutorials out there

✅ It’s a great exercise of imagination and creativity

Cons

❌ Achieving a good result requires time and learning

❌ There is a fine line between the ‘WOW’ and the ‘UGH’

Tips

🔹 For me there’re two kind of photos: those that are visually stunning and those that tell a story. Of course you can have both, but there’ll always be one that is more important than the other.

🔹 Don’t worry if your first editins aren’t good enough, nobody’s born knowing. We all go through a learning stage and it’s important not to become obsessed with this. Keep playing and keep creating, practice makes perfect 😉