davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2023

davidd wrote:
Yeah, an example of real-but-not-really photography is "astro-photography" with long exposures, noise reduction, multiple layering, and extensive enhancement that is giving people unrealistic expectations of what The Milky Way looks like in a "dark sky" environment.

Worse, so many people who actually believe that is how it looks, because they never go outside to really observe nature anymore. I have seen some real dumb examples of that lately.
Well, I certainly don’t have the dark sky I used to have in my very own backyard. That is also a subject for another rant.

Must be my little screen, because that photo doesn’t look too bad. I am talking about the really badly “enhanced“ ones where there is no way in heck it actually looked like that.
I grew up being exposed to literally some of the best photography in Canada, national contest winners being shown frequently at my parents’ camera club, so some of what I see in recent years really grinds my gears.  

28 January - A Doll A Day 2023:




War Story Toys WS015 Empire Commandos action figure

great sense of movement even though there is no movement!

This is like part two of the Dolly Market photo. Longer exposure with something in front of the lens?

Alliecat wrote:This is like part two of the Dolly Market photo. Longer exposure with something in front of the lens?

I wish I could say it as a "practical effect," but I used an iPad app called Mextures.

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29 January - A Doll A Day 2023:

I once dropped a Sooni Dal about 15 feet off a railing.

That sounds horrible, what happened to the doll?

I never dare to take water pictures unless doll is only sitting and just having their ankles on water or something like that. Pullips are especially prone to falling and getting their insides dry after a swimming trip is an ordeal!

...that's to say, I once dropped my Pure Neemo Raili off balcony (2nd floor) I was photographing her at. Luckily, she fell on the snow below and that year there was A LOT of snow, so nothing happened to her. Until later, when she fell off my bookshelf and broke her leg. She's on an Obitsu body now, it is very difficut to find a replacement body for Azone doll in white colour.

TrueFan wrote:
I once dropped a Sooni Dal about 15 feet off a railing.

Dal dolls are made of a hard, brittle plastic. Did she survive? I once dropped a Pinky Street dolly off a second story balcony, but they are made of a vinyl-like plastic, so while the parts scattered, nothing was broken and I recovered everything.

Pearls wrote:
...that's to say, I once dropped my Pure Neemo Raili off balcony (2nd floor) I was photographing her at. Luckily, she fell on the snow below and that year there was A LOT of snow, so nothing happened to her. Until later, when she fell off my bookshelf and broke her leg.

Poor thing! She survives a "life-threatening" tumble only to injure herself while "safely" at home! Danger lurks around every corner in Dolly Land!

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30 January - A Doll A Day 2023:

31 January - A Doll A Day 2023:



Taking photographs of little plastic statues of half-naked mermaids in front of the book one recently read and then posting those images online in public forums was, somewhat surprisingly, not one of the suggestions in Eric G. Wilson's How to be Weird: an off-kilter guide to living a one-of-a-kind life (2023, Penguin Books).

Among the 99 "lessons" featured in the book, only one was doll or toy related: "Lesson 39: Consider a Victorian Doll."

Rather than actually doing anything with a doll, Victorian or otherwise, Professor Wilson's suggestion (Eric G. Wilson is a university professor of English at Wake Forest University in North Carolina) is to consider a "thought ex-periment" –– imagine you are a Victorian porcelain doll who has grown weary of your existence in an elderly collector's guest room.

Stereotype muchly, me-thinks? The pretentious son-of-a-sea-slug, or should I specify "highly educated white male East coast professional in his mid-fifties," takes great pains in other "lessons" to present himself as culturally and socially sensitive, even decrying the portrayal of non-American and non-European cultures as "exotic" in 19th-century Cabinets of Curiosities, but he thinks nothing of promoting a long-held stereotype about doll collectors.

The "thought ex-periment" involves considering three options for the Victorian doll: remain as you are, become a puppet on strings who knows who is controlling you, or become an automaton who has freedom of movement but who is programmed to exist in a constant state of fear that every action might be wrong. Journal your thought processes as you consider the options.

Consider the options! Journal about it! Truly off-kilter, that is!

Dammit, dude! How about you take your Victorian porcelain doll to the local history museum, take a photo of her (or him, if you can find a "him" Victorian porcelain doll) with each Victorian-era exhibit, and then "imagine" your dolly friend's reaction to seeing their normal, everyday life enshrined in a museum and "curated" to present it in a "culturally sensitive social context." Post your photos and your commentary -- I mean your doll's commentary -- on Instagram so everybody can see it. Jiminy Christmas, privately journalled thought ex-periments? Who do you think your readers are, a bunch of twelve year old girls?

(Yeah, now I'm stereotyping 12 year old girls -- who are far less likely to keep a diary these days -- because it's not 1959 anymore -- and far more likely to post every single thing they do online... but not on Instagram, because that's for old people, so probably on TikTok or some site or app I've never even heard of.)

In a "lesson" on creating your own made-up words (that's weird?), the author smugly references various made-up words from literature -- prominently featuring examples from "non-white" authors, of course, because after all, he's culturally, socially, and racially on point -- but he left out ætetaurian by Michael Chabon, so I got to feel all smug and superior because ætetaurian is way better than the examples he used. Nor did he mention possibly the most widely-known made-up word: supercalifragilisticex-pialidocious.

The closest suggestion among the 99 offered in this book to doing anything overtly weird in public -- hang on to your hats, this is really out there -- is to paint cryptic or nonsensical phrases or sentences on rocks and surreptitiously leave them in the yards of your neighbors.

That's edgy stuff, that is.

Although it's not really "public" because you're being surreptitious and trying not to be seen doing your weird rock thing. Like, if you're weird in the forest and nobody is around to see your weirdness, are you truly weird?

Most of the suggestions are "thought ex-periments" -- imagine something and then write down how you feel about it. In your journal.

I wonder if the journal should have a cute little padlock on it?

Because seriously, another suggestion is: write the name of somebody you dislike or had issues with in the past in the center of a sheet of paper and then... doodle around it.

You wouldn't want anyone to see that, so the journal had darned well better have a lock on it!

The author claims you can make ink by soaking copper pennies in vinegar for a few weeks. I wouldn't exactly categorize that as being weird, but it sounds kinda cool, so I had to look it up.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-make-ink-foragers-guide-to-natural-inkmaking

https://leahmccloskeyart.com/2021/02/02/making-copper-oxide-ink/

I don't know if pennies would work. They won't work for our Canadian friends or our English friends because pennies aren't a thing there anymore. (So much for your multi-cultural sensitivity, Professor Pretenti-pants!) Pennies in America are mostly zinc with a thin copper coating, so I don't know if there's enough copper in a penny to make ink. You'd probably have better luck with an old copper pipe elbow, if you can find one. But I digress.

The one -- out of 99, the one -- suggestion in the book that I thought was actually kind of weird was to go stand on a window ledge high above the street, or on a rooftop, or on the edge of a cliff, and see if you felt an urge to jump.

I kinda was feeling an urge to jump off a window ledge after reading this book and seeing how prosaic were most of the suggestions for "living a one-of-a-kind life." Are people really and truly as constrained by social norms as this book would suggest? Are the options to either be a raving lunatic living in your own feces on a street corner or to be exactly like everyone else in a world where it is radical to -- gasp! -- imagine everyone around you is a robot! Write down how you would feel!

I did find something WEIRDly coincidental about this book. Last week I learned a new-to-me word on The Dal House doll forum, a word I had never seen or heard or read before: petrichore.

The word petrichore appears in How To Be Weird.

That... was weird.

davidd wrote:31 January - A Doll A Day 2023:
I did find something WEIRDly coincidental about this book. Last week I learned a new-to-me word on The Dal House doll forum, a word I had never seen or heard or read before: petrichore.

The word petrichore appears in How To Be Weird.

That... was weird.

Ha! Coincidence? Or something more sinister.....

Sooni (Darby) survived the fall. I'm thinking maybe she fell into a bush? I remember she was hard to reach. I did a whole photostory on PullipStyle but apparently it was before I joined this forum (April 2008!!).

Maybe it happened here.

Darby visits Starved Rock by TrueFan, on Flickr

Or here? I got more cautious. This was early in my outdoor photostories career.

Darby visits Starved Rock by TrueFan, on Flickr

TrueFan wrote:
Ha! Coincidence? Or something more sinister.....

I'm willing to go with "something more sinister."

Those are precipitous parapets in your pictures! That can't possibly be where she took her tumble; you'd never have recovered her! That looks like a lot further than fifteen feet! Like maybe a hundred fifty feet!

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1 February - A Doll A Day 2023:


The interesting thing here is that I found inexpensive (cheap) artificial plants at the local Dollar Tree store today. Artificial plants are often expensive. All the ones I've had previously I've scrounged from dumpsters and rubbish bins. Now I have some fresh, non-graveyard-used plastic and silk plants to use in action figure and dolly dioramas and scenes.

Now you need some dinosaurs for your lush foliage, haha.
I had to chuckle at the idea of someone walking on the street and having a tiny doll fall beside them. And then go to pieces. Good thing you were able to recover them all.
My crew seems to need to get stunt certification before they become full-fledged members. "Everybody falls on their first photoshoot" is a custom I don't really want to have! A few have taken some real headers.
I think dude hasn't been exposed to much real weirdness. Whimsy, maybe. Not really weird.

Nice find on the plants. They look pretty realistic. My experience has been that their fake plants usually look pretty fake. MyFroggyStuff on youtube makes occasional raids on the Dollar Tree for doll crafting which has made me take a different look at some of their stuff.

CornflowerBlue wrote:Nice find on the plants. They look pretty realistic. My experience has been that their fake plants usually look pretty fake.  MyFroggyStuff on youtube makes occasional raids on the Dollar Tree for doll crafting which has made me take a different look at some of their stuff.

Yeah, Dollar Tree has a lot of cool stuff... for cheap. Although it's not a dollar anymore. Everything costs $1.25 now. Plus sales tax.

Not all Dollar Tree stores carry the same merchandise, and some are better stocked than others. I'm fortunate that the one near here is well stocked.
The plants look adequately real for my usual "visual style, which is sort of cartoonish semi-realistic.

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2 February - A Doll A Day 2023:


I found these little fans that look like big fans in 1/6 scale at the same place I found the plastic plants yesterday, for super cheap, so I purchased two of them. One was pink and one was purple, which was cute, but a dash of spray paint allows them to better fit my standard mise-en-scène, which is dark, greasy, rusty, and grungy.

Interesting window... are we underground?

Alliecat wrote:Interesting window... are we underground?

Underground, underwater, out in space... or needing a better background for the window. Yeah, that's it. The blue was a temporary thing that is... temporary.

Or my version of temporary.

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3 February - A Doll A Day 2023:

Well, it makes a convincing underground rock wall for a secret base. That was what you were going for, right!

She looks quite chic and the radio is cute.

4 February - A Doll A Day 2023:


Gotta get in as many beach days as possible, because time here is running short!

You’re a bitch Stupid phone dictation!!!
YOUR BEACH photos thaw my frozen soul just a little as I sit here watching the temperature “warm up“ to -14.  

Alliecat wrote:You’re a bitch Stupid phone dictation!!!

Must be your accent, eh?

Or your attitude!

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5 February - A Doll A Day 2023

"Unlike many of our projects where, in authentic DIY TV fashion, we 'hype up' the level of difficulty or danger, this project offers a very real possibility of serious injury or death. On the bright side, it's a relatively simple project, and offers very little chance of minor injury. But major injury... or death? Yeah, that could happen.

Because, y'see, before you remove this cover to pull out the old circuit breaker switches -- that's what we're doing today, replacing a couple of faulty circuit breaker switches -- particularly if they are old and damaged, it's a good idea to turn off the MAIN POWER BREAKER servicing the breaker box. In fact, there's even a label on the box, there, that says TURN OFF POWER SUPPLYING THIS EQUIPMENT BEFORE WORKING INSIDE. They have to say that -- liability concerns and stuff."



"Problem is, some old houses, like this one, DO NOT HAVE a main power breaker switch to turn off. Turning off the power to the breaker box requires either asking the power company for a temporary disconnect, or calling an electrician to physically disconnect the power feed. Either approach is time-consuming and expensive.

Like... expensive.

So rather than shell out hundreds of bucks by calling 'a professional' for a ten minute job replacing a twenty dollar part, we're gonna go with the Potential Major Injury or Death option.

If you're seeing this post, things probably worked out all right.

If you're not seeing this post, you probably won't be seeing any further posts from us."

"Do you see that strip of metal, there, that looks all rusty and burned and stuff? Yeah, well, it's not supposed to look all rusty and burned and stuff. That's called the 'bus,' and it's what you call 'hot,' which means it has a lot, and I mean a LOT, of electricity poised to LEAP OUT in what's called an 'arc' and cause a whole lotta havoc... unless you're careful.

It's hard to be careful when the breaker box main bus is falling to pieces. This box needs to be replaced. That's a job that's probably better left to a professional. A real, electrical-specialist type professional. You know, the ones called electricians?

For now we're gonna snap in a new breaker switch -- the back of the old breaker switch looks as bad as this bus -- and hope it works for now. This circuit doesn't actually get used much, so we'll probably turn it off and hope it'll stop making that hissy sizzling sound."

Eeek. Stay safe.

TrueFan wrote:Eeek. Stay safe.

Where's the fun in that?

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6 February - A Doll A Day 2023:


Ankylosaur Surfing never really caught on. Veteran surfers likened the experience to trying to ride a waterlogged longboard with a misaligned skeg.

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8 February - A Doll a Day 2023:





In addition to its popularity as a Spring Break destination, Daytona Beach in Florida is becoming a go-to location during Ankylosaur Week!

Or... maybe not.

Internet rumors, gotta be careful with stuff like that.

davidd wrote:
Where's the fun in that?

IKR, right?  

davidd wrote:
Internet rumors, gotta be careful with stuff like that.

Heehee... yeah, sometimes they're just spoiler alerts  

davidd wrote:Must be your accent, eh?
Or your attitude!

I am sure there is some of both, depending on the occasion.  
Srsly tho, I think I need to re-set Siri again. It takes forever to fix all the mistakes, even though I enunciate clearly.

Love the beach pix, and the perspective.  I'd like to be 6" tall and go play with the girls.  And their dinosaur.
THAT must be how they built the pyramids and Stonehenge.  Dinosaur power!!