Besides poor posing, I really dislike poor doll photography. Like any other visual art, photography has many aspects that one can alter for varying effect: lighting, framing, focus, etc. [No, I don’t know the technical terms.] However, I have, unfortunately, experienced way too many photos where these aspects are altered out of sheer ineptitude, rather than artistic consideration. While we poor amateurs may not be able to take photos as beautiful as those of the masters, we can at least follow some basic rules to make our own works functional:

• The camera should be focused on the subject. If the subject is a particular doll head, I don’t want to see fine-grained, macro-level detail of the wall just behind the doll. [Here’s a beautiful example in the first panel of Unreal Life 1.5.]
• Lighting should be appropriate to the subject. Consider that fluorescents make things yellow, and flashes tend to wash out the subject. [And here in Unreal Life 4.6, we can’t even see what’s happening because it’s too damn dark.]
• The level of blur should be appropriate to the subject. If the dolls are supposed to be running, feel free to move the camera as the shutter is closing. But, if you’re supposedly taking a static shot, blur sabotages all the detail that you’re allegedly capturing. [Unfortunately, all the pictures of Meg’s Onyx that I took at doll club on Saturday were blurry!]

I really can take a decent picture, though, you know!