How to photograph cakes?

Ever seen a photo of a cake in a magazine or a website and longed for a bit? Well that’s a compliment to not only the one who baked it, but also to the photographer.

People who are in the business of baking cakes or decorating it, will agree how important it is to take pictures of their final products. A good photo will in turn guarantee more business in future as prospective buyers might want to see your previous work.

So it pays to learn a few tricks about photographing cakes, which can be done with a simple digital camera as well.

1. Use natural light. Avoid using flash and try to use the day light to click pictures of your cake. This will accentuate the colour and detailing of the cake.

2. If you are a professional baker, then take pictures either in your kitchen or a place which is well lit. Do not wait to deliver the cake and shoot at the venue, since it can turn out to be a bad idea. Things like lighting, background etc won’t be in your control and can mess up the cake photo.

3. Be creative with the background. Cakes mostly look classy when the background is neat and elaborate. So you can achieve this by clearing the table, placing the cake at the edge and placing an old decorative paper (or gift wrapping paper) in the background. Shoot from the other end of the table so that in the frame, more of the cake and less of the table is visible.

4. Style your cake in a way that it looks extra delicious in the photo. One way of achieving this is by cutting a neat slice of the cake and keeping it on a plate next to the rest of it.

5. Get up-close if you are shooting a cupcake. They are tiny, so shoot from as near as possible to show the details and shut out other irrelevant objects from the frame. If you have more than one piece of that cupcake, then like them up and take a group photo!