Wedding Cake Photography, the natural way

Making food photography look better than before using natural AND artificial lighting!

I hope you didn't blink. This is the last shot of the day where the baker made an amazingly beautiful wedding cake in less than 2 hours!!!

We were using the stone background when the setting sun started shining it's warm golden light onto the wall (top right), casting the shadow of the structure 50 feet above. It lasted mere minutes.

I whipped out my 35mm lens to include more background in the shot, change the 5 lights setup in 2 minutes (if you've done wedding or engagement photography, that'll improve your reflexes and thinking speed. Anything "wedding" has to be done in lightning speed, both physically and mentally.

The lighting on the cake itself was controlled to show the depth of a white cake that still has texture within itself.

The light behind the cake was carefully metered to be subtle and to accent the background, lighting what was supposed to be dark. Its dual purpose is to light up the "La" in "La Baguette" as well. Now, it glows a halo around the cake. Nice! Just what I needed. Within 2 minutes, all the lights were setup to show the white cake on white tablecloth nicely while the composition is surrounded by darker shadows (except the La Baguette paint). Perfect.

I took 4-5 shots and the light that hit the wall was there no more.

Could I recreate it? Of course!

How much would it cost me to recreate a cookied shot like that using the best equipment?
$10,000. (A high end Fresnel light + powerpack + a nice tall lightstand + a cookie board)

Uh, any cheaper way?
$3000. (A fresnel light modifier, the light of course, a tall light stand and a cardboard)

Still expensive?
$300. (Two really tall light stand, a cardboard and a light source but you need to do it at night.

How much would it cost to do it with nature's help?
Priceless!

- MS

California's Nutty Food Photographer

A world without good foods is chaos. That's the motto of Good Foods, a major nuts supplier to Trader Joe's.

I had the help of the wonderful Randy Mon, food stylist on these. We averaged one image per hour, meticulously arranging the nuts based on composition of color, angle, shape, quality and texture.

The food photography & lighting are creatively setup with only two lights. Who needs more when we can add, shape and remove the photons to whatever direction, quality and quantity that I desire. ;-)

The image on the right (to be used as their brochure cover) is carefully taken with a tilt-shift lens, manual focused with the help of an angle finder C. Only the two middle bowls that are not on the same focus plane, are in focus. This is to create an artistic look that that leaves the front and back bowl out of focus, melting into the foreground/background.

Good Foods is owned by Sara Tidhar, the owner and a great chef. Her dreams are beyond imagination and she plans to takeover the world using her political prowess in her fast expanding nut industry. Yee Haw!

She found me via Tom Lauck of Creative Ops, a local eMarketing company. "I absolutely love your cupcake image with the little girl", she said. I guess what completely convinced her to use me are really the images I did for Monterey Bay Spice Company that packages & supplies tea Peet's Coffee & Tea.

I have strong confidence in her success in the near future. This woman has the drive and marketing brains to go with it. She was telling us the story of her son and daughter, helping her pack 160,000 packages and labels for delivery when they first started out. Gawd! I genuinely feel that she is heading towards a great path in her life with all the resources she needs to make it prosperous. God speed, Sara!