RandomButterflies

One of my two extra Dreaming Chloe face-plates came back from Nomyens with her new face-up.

I intended that she look a little bit flirty, and I can safely say that Chloe is all that... and maybe a little bit more?

Her earrings are by LyanneNZ.

She is wearing a pretty BoHo lace dress from Iplehouse.​

Again, she has a little help to support her posing with the "invisible" stand from Alice Collections.

Somehow, those of us in the BJD hobby have a tendency to collect "spare parts"  which haven't quite achieved the effect we wanted in our dolls.

But eventually, the perfect doll comes along for those parts...  or should that be - we find the perfect parts for our new dolls in our stash of spare parts?

Mirwen is a Feeple60 sculpt from Fairyland, and I had her in a dark brown wig and lovely blue eyes when I first got her - and she did look lovely. But those of us in this hobby know that we can never leave it at that...

Anyway, Mirwen has now found herself with lovely silvery gray eyes from Soom (Gray Eclipse) and curly hair (Monique wig Ellowyne-Rose in "Ginger Brown").

These had never looked quite right on other dolls.  But now?  Perfection.

For now, anyway.

I love her "dewy" new look...

Mirwen's beautiful face-up is by Angel Toast.

I visited my friend Lyanne, and we played around photographing my Dreaming Chloe in (yet another) new gown from MonaeGlow.

It is now Spring (at last!) in Auckland and Chloe looked the very epitome of the spirit of Spring in her new gown so that got me thinking about creating a themed photo along those lines.

I decided to depict her as Persephone, and added Iplehouse Victor as Hades, abandoned by his beloved wife for six months of every year as she returns to the earth at the beginning of Spring.

I photographed them separately (for reasons of space) against a black velvet background, and then had a little play in Photoshop Elements to add some effects.  I was quite pleased with the results.

Victor looks appropriately sorrowful...

I just love backdrops...

These are printed fabric photographic drops approximately 1 metre wide and 1.5 metres long.

There is always a good collection on ebay.

When I got a new white, flowered gown from MonaeGlow I knew just how I wanted to photograph it - with a moonlit forest background.  And I found the perfect backdrop on ebay and took a series of photos with Iplehouse Doria (Swanhilda).  If you click on the photos below you will be taken to their Flickr pages.​

I also had a play with this sunset sea backdrop, with Soom Breccia on a Cass (siren) body;

  What a doll!

I just love the Fairyland Feeple65 sculpt Angela, and have been having lots of fun photographing her since she returned from Angel Toast with her new face-ups.

So far, I have been photographing mostly "night-time" Angelika, but I'll do more photos of "day-time" Angelika once summer rolls around and I feel like doing photos of my girls in pretty summer frocks and sassy bikinis.

Angelika wows and sizzles in new gowns by MonaeGlow.  She sure is a beauty...

Here is another MonaeGlow gown in glorious indigo.  She is wearing wonderful platform shoes from DollHeart.  There is no way she can stand on these on her own, so she is supported by an "invisible"  stand from Alice's Collections.

Click here to be taken to the sales page for the stand _

Her pretty earrings and necklace are by LyanneNZ.

Angelika was partnered by Griffin (Soom Ender on Iplehouse SID body).  He is wearing clothing by Iplehouse.  I posted these photos on the Zone of Zen forum and Griffin got a lot of very nice compliments.  Well, he is a handsome boy!

  Three of my photo on Flickr have been 'explored'.

The first time it happened, I was very puzzled to find one of my photos seemed to have garnered a surprisingly high number of 'views' and I had been invited to join the 'in explore' group.

It took me a while to realize that being 'explored' meant that somehow my photo had been flagged by the Flickr 'explore' algorithm, and that the invitation to join the group was completely separate, and came from the admin of the (user) group and not Flickr admin.

Apparently the Flickr 'explore' algorithm picks 500 newly uploaded photos each day, which it deems 'interesting', for reasons which are obscure and places them in an 'Explore' list.  This list is simply to allow users to browse new photos which they might not otherwise see.

A brilliant idea!  Occasionally I have a peek in there and I see many wonderful photos which I otherwise would never have come across.

It's very gratifying of course to be deemed of enough interest (even by an algorithm) to be added to the list, but at the same time, deeply puzzling.

Why that photo?  I guess I will never know.  If you click on the photos below you will be taken to the relevant Flickr page.

Here is the first photo;​

The next photo to be 'explored' was a quick snap of Angelika in a new DZ70 blouse which I took with my phone to show a friend how it fitted.  For reasons which will remain ever obscure to me it became very popular indeed and quickly garnered over 10,000 views and 100+ favourites.  Go figure.  I have to laugh given all my attention to carefully photographing my dolls, and then having a quick snap attract so much attention... who knew?

And then, inexplicably, a similar photo was chosen, this time of Iplehouse Doria in the same blouse;

Why?  I guess I'll never know - the methodology of the algorithm is kept secret, for good reason, since those Flickr members obsessed with collecting 'followers' would game the system.

But the attention sure is nice while it lasts!