Can Dolls be Haunted? How to Create a Doll Island in Your Backyard

  

The doll island in my yard began long ago when I was exploring abandoned sites and collected broken dolls left on the desert floor. 

My Doll Island Harvest !

 

Last fall, after leaving the dolls up all spring and summer awaiting Halloween time, I harvested the dolls on my backyard doll island and collected creepy hands, feet, and heads.... 

This year, I took special delight in putting the dolls out to set the mood as the cornstalks die back like scratchy white paper flapping in the wind and the tall overburdened sunflowers droop like faces turned down upon them. 

At nighttime they turn into something sinister and possessed by the moonlight - 

Adding a Michael Myers mask to the situation creates a hauntingly scary nighttime summer garden - 

And then there's my scarecrow, Josiah in the moonlight - 

I suggest if you want to do some nighttime spooky photography in your yard, use the natural moonlight or consider some solar lights as they add a soft eerie light at nighttime. A lantern is another great visual, as well. Don't use the flash, you lose all spookiness.

Another great technique is to move the camera back and forth quickly as you shoot. Because it's dark the shutter stays open and the subject blurs like a ghost.

Take advantage of filtered light through items to create speckling or striping. Use dead branches, crunchy leaves, and get underneath and photograph up to capture moonlight and give subjects an ominous size. 

Doll heads - from Goodwill shop dolls and aged in the garden for that lived-in look!

If the dolls have no eyes, put a glow stick inside - 

Happy photographing!

When Dolls Cross the Line From Cute to Terrifying!

Isla de las Munecas or "Island of the Dolls" (popularly coined "Doll Island") is a thing of horror for many. Why would an island filled with dolls for decades, laid to waste by the elements and neglect, be terrifying? Well, let me introduce you to its most unsettling beginnings.

My Own Doll Island: How to Shoot Halloween in Your Garden

Last fall, after leaving the dolls up all spring and summer awaiting Halloween time, I harvested the dolls on my backyard doll island and collected creepy hands, feet, and heads.... 

Doll Island: Baby Bumper Crop

After leaving the dolls up all spring and summer awaiting Halloween time, I harvested the dolls on my backyard doll island and collected creepy hands, feet, and heads.... 

Fear of Dolls: Doll Island, Horror Movies and Uncanny Valley

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Isla de las Munecas or "Island of the Dolls" (popularly coined "Doll Island") is a thing of horror for many. Why would an island filled with dolls for decades, laid to waste by the elements and neglect, be terrifying? Well, let me introduce you to its most unsettling beginnings.

Case Files Week: Revisiting the Doll Island Case

Doll Island, as it is referred to, is a piece of land in a canal in Mexico that has gotten a horrifying reputation over the decades because of the man who lived there and a curse he feared.