How to take pictures of wedding cakes? That's not exactly what this short blog is about. It's not so much about taking pictures of wedding cakes as it is about how to set them up for a photographer. I am one of those photographers and I see lots of beautiful work-of-art cakes. But some of them are very poorly displayed.
Just compare the pictures of beautiful cakes above and to the side (taken by me - smileyface should go here) with the beautiful cakes below and their not-so-beautiful pictures ( I did not take these - another smileyface).
Assuming that you like my pictures above more than the ones below, what's the difference?
Some of the difference is in the way the photo is taken but a big part of the difference is that we have good light for my pretty cakes above and bad light for the other pretty cakes. Each of the four cakes shown at the bottom could have equally beautiful photos.
Photos need light. As a photographer, there are really only two options - (1) make more light or (2) work with the light we have. Sounds simple, but it can take years and lots of skill to mix these two things together.
To make more light, we need to position lights around the object being photographed. That takes time and the results are subject to a fair amount of trial and error. In most wedding situations there is not enough time to set up lights to photograph the cake. The cake may get a few minutes of time in an otherwise busy reception hall.
So when a beautiful cake is located in a darkened corner of the room it's not going to look the same ( to your eye ) as it did in beautiful light. And the pictures of a beautiful cake off in a dark corner of the room are not going to look one tenth as good as that same cake when properly displayed. But we do have a flash on our camera and that can help to make nice light in the right situation.
It is especially important to have a little light behind the cake. The light does not always have to be bright but light helps to define the shape and color of the cake. If you look at the cakes shown above you can see how the light and color in the background adds to the beauty of the cake and helps to define it's lines. The not-so-good pictures have the cakes blending in with their backgrounds somewhat. There is nothing in the background that is appealing in any way.
The background light does not need to be close to the cake. If you have attractive lights in the reception hall, as in the photo of the yellow cake above, then the photo can be taken from an angle that will use this light to advantage. It helps if you have a camera that permits you to manually select the lens aperture. If you set the aperture to be as open as possible then you can get the cake to be in focus while the background is soft and out of focus,
In many cases your cake pictures will need to be taken where the cake is located, and you won't have the ability to move it. Often you will need to use the camera's flash to give you enough light. Try to position yourself in a location so that the flash does not create an unattractive shadow on a wall behind the cake. It's really helpful if you have a camera setup that permits the flash to be somewhere other than next to the lens. If you can extend the flash above the lens, with a flash bracket, off to the side, or bounced off a wall or ceiling, you will get a better result.
Color temperature also plays into cake pictures. Indoor lighting often has a yellowish-orange color to it due to the color temperature of tungsten light. It is not necessarily unattractive but you can take care of it by processing your pictures in Photoshop or some other photo editing program. The key thing is that you want to get accurate color for the cake itself, and it's not such a problem if the background has a warm (yellow) tone to it.
Look at the whole scene. In addition to having some light behind the cake it is really best to also have a background that is attractive. You might be surprised how many reception halls in expensive hotels can have walls that are as bland as you will find anywhere. It does not need to be elaborate but some lace, some lattice, some kind of pattern, some small lights, plants with leaves in the background, all look so much better than grey hotel paneling with a light switch at cake level or a cinderblock wall.
Having a background behind the cake will also help tremendously when photographing the cutting of the cake.
The cake table. There are sometimes nice serving utensils on the cake table, and they can add to the picture. But bowls full of plastic spoons and paper plates will detract from the photo. If they have to be there, then they have to be there, but set them up with a little space away from the cake so the photographer can get some nice shots of the cake without having to completely rearrange the table. Sometime there is no time to rearrange the table.
Close up shots and interesting angles. We photographers tend to see things from their own perspectives and when it comes to a wedding, we tend to think in terms of the pictures we want and what we are going to do to get those pictures. Most (good) photographers will do their very best to get the shots.
Outdoor cakes. In general, it is not difficult to photograph cakes outdoors, but some of the things mentioned above still apply. The biggest concern over an outdoor cake is usually the weather. A cake outside on a one hundred degree day is not going to hold it's sparkle very long.
When it comes to "cake details", like supporting and setting up a five tier cake or how hot it can get before you need to worry about your cake you need to talk to somebody who knows the cake business, somebody like this: Sue at Creative Cakes (several of the really nice cakes at the top are her's)
Remember : Cameras are not magic wands! If it is there in real life it (maybe) will be in the picture!
© Copyright Mike McElhatton 2000-2009