7 Tips to Help with Amazing Cake Photography
Do you have a sweet tooth? Do you love to bake and decorate cakes? Have you ever considered photographing your creations for social media or blogging purposes? If so, this is the post for you.
Cake photography is one of the areas that a food blogger needs to master if you plan to create this kind of recipe. While it is similar to other types of food photography, there are a few things to understand about taking the best cake pictures. And a few cake photography tips to help you get the best photos of your sweet creations.
Read on as we explore some of the best tips and tricks for getting that perfect shot.
Use Natural Light to Make the Shoot Easier
Natural light is a great option for shooting food photos, whereas artificial light is much more versatile but it often requires expensive gear and equipment to get the desired effect.
A professional photographer will usually have to work with artificial light as well as natural light sources, but those who are new or inexperienced may find that natural light is best when they want to shoot a cake photo.
In order to make the most of natural lighting when shooting cake photographs, you’ll need to be near a window so that you can use any available sunlight. You can also use a curtain as a diffuser or material with a translucent surface to soften harsh sunlight coming in from the window and eliminate any hard shadows on your food.
If it’s cloudy outside, you might not need a diffuser.
Choose the Best Light Direction
There are three types of lighting directions you can work in food photography: side lighting, backlighting, and side backlighting.
Side lighting is when the light is coming from one side. If you imagine the face of a clock, it’s at either 9 o’clock or 3 o’clock. Backlighting is when the light is coming from directly behind the subject, at 12 o’clock. Side backlighting is in between the two, at around 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock.
When you take photos of cakes, you want to avoid frontal light. Sure, it lights your cakes evenly. But it also creates shadows behind your subject. Frontal light can make any food look flat and dull. It is a great light direction for portraits. But it’s not so great for when you take food photos.
The best food photos are those with contrast and dimension to the light. If you check out stunning food pictures, you see that the light doesn’t look the same through the whole frame. That’s what you should aim for.
The lighting style you choose will depend on the type of cake you’re photographing. If you have a cake with a shiny glaze, or a lot of texture, like a coconut cake, you might want to choose backlighting. It enhances texture and brings out the shiny parts.
Side backlighting will give you a similar result. But it will be a bit easier to manage. Backlighting can be tricky, though. Sometimes the back of your image is too bright while the front is too dark. You’ll have to experiment with the distance of your light to the set. Bounce some of the light back onto the front of the cake. The closer you place it to your scene, the softer the light is. So, if you have a shiny cake surface, like a doughnut, this tip will help you out!
You will also want to consider different types of cake photography and how the light works with them. For example, taking photos of cupcakes can be done with them whole or sliced, similar to cakes. But then cake pops are a whole different story! So don’t get too set on one type of cake photography and be ready to adapt as needed.
How To Be A Master At Dessert Photography
Dessert photography is a complex process that requires the photographer to take into consideration all of the intricacies and create magical moments for their viewers. As such, it’s important to know your dessert before you start taking pictures!
Keep It Minimal
When taking pictures of cakes, you want to make sure your beautiful creation is the star. If you use too many props, they detract from your main subject. Your cake ends up competing for attention. This is especially true if you are presenting a whole cake.
You can also photograph several cake slices on plates. You can use matching plates or a variety of plates. Place them in an asymmetrical pattern, so your picture has some flow.
Don’t use too many utensils, supporting ingredients or linen in the photo. You want to keep the focus on the slices of cake (first row).
When composing your slices of cake, remember the rule of odds – use three or five plates which is better than an even number like two or four. Even numbers tend to compete with each other and split the viewer’s attention.
If you do have an extra item, have it just poking into the frame. This will add some interest to your shots.
Pick Your Props Carefully
One of the most important aspects of photography is picking the props. The choice of props should be cohesive with the other elements in the image and make sense in the context of your visual story.
When it comes to cake photography props for example, if you’re trying to capture a cake, it makes sense to place a knife in your photo. If the blade doesn’t look sharp enough to cut through butter, then it’s not the right choice. It also makes sense to add some sprinkles from the top of the cake around it or a few chocolate curls if the cake features them.
But if your object has no relation whatsoever to your photo, then there’s no point in putting it there. It’s best to use props sparingly. This way the viewer’s attention stays focused on the cake, and not on a bunch of random things floating around in the photo.
Choose the Best Angle to Highlight Your Cake
Choosing the best angle for your cake photography is very important. The angle is what highlights all of its qualities and tells the story you want to tell.
You can’t use one angle for any picture, because it’s always about what suits the subject. For example, if you have a frosted cake with layers, probably the best way to show it is straight on so that it looks like it goes up in height.
If the swirls of icing are the focus, you might want to do a three-quarters shot to emphasize those.
Overhead shots don’t work as well unless all you want to keep showing is just at the top of the cake or if you’re doing a bit of storytelling and also have plates or other items in the frame to keep showing that it is a celebration cake.
Flat lay shots are good for storytelling because they show off all of the layers and this way you can make your cake look like it’s really delicious and gorgeous!
Use Food Styling Tricks to Enhance the Subject
The best way to take a photo of a cake that you didn’t bake is to put it in different lights, angles, and food styling tricks.
That’s why when photographing a slice of cake, you can add extra layers of cardboard between the layers to make the slice look higher. Cut out the same shape but just a bit smaller than the cake slice. Pop it between two layers, and cover it with frosting. This will give your slice a high effect from all angles and please your audience.
When photographing a whole cake, you can use this same method but with round-shaped cardboard pieces.
Use a Smaller Aperture to Nail Your Focus
Most of the time, you’ll go for autofocus when shooting cake photography but this has its own challenged. Sometimes it focuses on the wrong part of the scene or just can’t lock onto anything.
If there’s not enough light, it can struggle. Low-contrast or uniform coloured scenes can also create issues.
That’s why manual focus can work best for this type of food photography. Try using a smaller aperture such as an f/8. Working with macro lenses is also the best option once you have mastered finding that focal point as you’ll get that lovely narrow depth of field.
Just remember to focus on the front of the cake most of the time!
Mastering cake photography
There is more to cake photography than just snapping a few shots. It’s also about capturing the cake in its best light, highlighting all of its features and telling the story you want to tell with your photos. Beautiful cake photos look good enough to eat – but also good enough to want to make yourself!
