Naked Cakes are certainly popular at the moment and I am definitely a fan of them too. I love that you can add so many elements to them and make them unique in their own right. Cakes have certainly changed since I was married and for the better, I think. I mean, hello, Swiss Buttercream! If you have never tried a cake with Swiss Buttercream you do not know what you are missing. If you are like me, you have only ever tried the American Buttercream which is basically icing sugar and butter. Swiss Buttercream, has this melt in your mouth, silk or satin texture that is to die for. There is no going back either.
This cake below was made by Holly from Holly Eloise Cake Artist, who is as lovely as her cakes. If you are in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast or surrounds and would like a modern fresh feel to your wedding or engagement cake then I highly recommend you check her out. This particular cake had a pistachio and cardamon crumble in between some of the layers and was sprinkled with a gold dust ( as you can see in one of the shots), and iced with a vanilla swiss buttercream. Holly has so so many different ideas for cakes, the varieties are endless!
I have some information about the photography process below but if that doesn't interest you then skip ahead to the images!
Alright, I will stop talking about the cake and get onto the photography now. Holly wanted to go for a dark moody style, which I absolutely love, and really is my go to style for shooting food. I just feel like it adds so much to the feel of the image. So that is the first shot I set up. I am using Studio Strobes for most of my food images now as I love the control that it gives me. I don't have to worry about the time of day for shooting or the using higher ISO or the sun going in and out behind the clouds. As you can tell from the image, I have my light to camera left. I then used black cards to remove the light from the areas I didn't want it to hit. There can be a lot of fiddling around with where to place these cards, it really is just a matter of trial and error.
For the second set up, I still had the light to camera left, however, I changed the background to a lighter colour, and I had a bounce card to camera right to lighten the shadows. I find it amazing how with the same ingredient and just a few changes you get a completely different look.
Styling the image is something I don't really think about too much ahead of time. I have been told I should, however, I don't really profess to be a stylist. Styling food does seem to keep landing in my lap, and I tend to be getting by. I must say though that I am always open to working with other stylists, that is for sure. For this shot, I knew what colour flowers Holly was going to go with for the cake, so immediately the vintage look came to my mind. Having cups with similar colours was a bonus. Being able to use a lot of my Mum's pieces that she has given me was an extra bonus. As you can see we changed the props when we changed the style of image we were going for. Anyway, I will stop talking, I hope you enjoy and don't get too hungry!
And on to the second version..........
