Bright Portrait

Yuffie finally got herself a fiber wig I'm pleased with. The colours are very vibrant and the lilac strands actually match her eyes in colour :3 I just had forgotten how much trouble posing with longer fiber wigs is... I hear some say that portrait photography is easier, which is a big misconception. Not saying that action-photography isn't hard, it is, otherwise I'd be doing it a lot more. But it's easy to not notice how much attention to detail a good portrait photo takes.



First there is the overall composition. You can have a basic portrait, with the face and the shoulders showing (like above), or a more groovy composition with just half of the face showing or with the angle really crooked. You must watch out for the empty spaces, so that there isn't too much of it. You want to think of the rule of the thirds (applicable and crucial to any photography though), most likely the eyes at the line of the upper third.

Then you have to start fiddling with the pose of the doll. You don't want the head at dead center of the image, but more to either side (also thinking of rule of the thirds). The eyes should look into the camera, not just slightly off. Or if the eyes are clearly looking at the side, the doll can look out of the frame, but then it should be out of the side of the photo with more room.

Then there's the accessories. With dolls, the fiber wigs are harder than furs. They tend to have specific swirls that they hold to and trying to position it perfectly takes time and patience. You have to watch out if any fibers have gotten loose and now flying over the doll's face. Sometimes you only notice these from the enlargened photos when going through them on the computer and it sucks! Luckily there's the patch tool, it actually saved this photo... You should also look at the doll through the preview of your camera, since you might not notice awkward strands otherwise. With this photo, it took me several tries to get the hair to frame her face like this, with the outline clear and not having any stray strands behind her. I also had to reposition the bow, so that it didn't show the metal clasp in the final picture.

Still, I love portraits. I love editing them, making the doll pop out in its best.