Not Cecil Beaton (yet…)

Here we are on Day Two of the New Year and I have already learned new stuff! *Proud*

After setting up my Etsy shop (see the link on the side) I then rushed headlong into setting up a Facebook page for the dolls – Trippet Castle Dolls is now likeable (I hope) on Facebook.  ( https://www.facebook.com/TrippetCastleDolls ). Go on, like me! You know you want to!

All this online activity left me with a bit of a problem. So far for the posts on my blog I have been taking little pix of the dolls with my not-particularly-flash phone. They have been okay, but really just that – okay. Not stunning, not even particularly informative, and so this morning I felt the time had come to put together a slightly more effective set up to photograph my models. This is what it looks like:

Stunningly professional, huh? I can tell you’re impressed.

Have you stopped laughing yet? Good.  I shall continue.  Well okay, it may not look like much, (and please try to ignore the bits of stuff I don’t have anywhere sensible to keep essential equipment dangling from that rack), but trust me, it serves the purpose. I am pretty pleased with the resulting photos – here’s a (fine)  example:

The trick is apparently to bounce a LOT of light around, so I have been ferreting around the flat for unpainted canvas boards and large sheets of cartridge paper, found a floodlight which we use when we are doing craft fairs and suspended that from the top, bent the card and canvas board around to minimise joins (these pics are unedited atm, but when I crop them you won’t see any of the paper joins, hopefully), and covered a piece of cardboard in silver foil to use to reflect light back on the subject. All this was set up in the window to add natural light into the equation, and we have put a daylight bulb into the room as well. It all helps – and it all seems to work! Am feeling very pleased with myself at the moment (can you tell?) and feel that I may deserve a glass of wine as a reward later…

And here’s one more, just because I can do this now!

Anyone want me to come round and photograph their work?

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