Yoko, Shizuko and a Violet

Saw a battered, lone yellow Violet that had sprouted in the middle of a barren gravel driveway, wanted to capture it together with my Dollfie Dream girls as posing them with flowers is always fun.

Hence, plucked the small flower and set to snapping some photos of it with Shizuko, later joined by Yoko.

Wasn’t too pleased with the lighting and white balance after the first captures, so started playing around with the Clear custom Picture Style from Canon and overexposing the shots with slower shutter speeds.

Save for some white balance correction and slight increases in black and vibrance setting using Adobe Lightroom, the effect seen was pretty much achieved on camera.

Absolutely adore this shot of Shizuko holding the flower, not only due to capturing her lovely facial sculpt up close, but with the extreme contrast her white hooded sweater that creates bright, washed out areas shifting focus on Shizuko and the flower.

Considering I was using a tripod, stability during longer exposure times wasn’t an issue, so opted to mount my Canon 100mm macro lens to get sharp, crisp results.

Like how this shot of Yoko and Shizuko posing together turned out.

Managed to emphasize the older and younger sister atmosphere by making Yoko look taller, an effect achieved by having Yoko wear platform boots and standing on a Volks stand while Shizuko was posed barefoot in front of it.

This particular angle makes Shizuko look rather insecure, fragile. Do like how her customized DDH03 head does have enough versatility in seemingly portraying a different expression depending on the angle.

A more challenging shot, not only because posing the Dollfies like that required some patience in finding a stable position for Shizuko, but with the Canon 100mm macro lens’ shallow depth of field, even at f/11, had to go up to f/18 to have both Yoko and Shizuko sufficiently in focus.

For comparison, the below photo was taken with one of the default Picture Styles and auto white balance.

Convenient when using a tripod and fixed posed subjects like DD’s is that one can experiment with different settings without having to fear the exact same angle and pose cannot be replicated anymore.

You can see more photos of this set in my Dollfie Dream photo collection on Flickr.