Taking Better Pictures: How to Photograph Your Cakes
by Sweet Success Magazine Staff
Professional and eye-catching photography is essential when it comes to having images to use when you market and promote your cake business. Ideally you can hire a photographer to take pictures for you, or ask the wedding photographer for a copy of the images for the event. Often, photographers will provide you with the images as long as you make sure to give them credit and leave their watermarks intact. However, hiring a photographer for every instance can get expensive, and the wedding photographer doesn’t always get back to you after the wedding.
If you don’t have access to professional cake images, it makes it quite difficult to create advertisements, social media posts, blog updates, and other related marketing materials for your cake business. The next best solution is to learn how to take images yourself using a few tips and techniques from the professionals. If you have a professional camera, that is great, however you can take clear, high quality images using just your smartphone camera.
Smartphone cameras actually do produce high quality images
Before we get started, let’s dispel the myth that you need a professional, thousand dollar, DSLR camera to create high-quality images. Let us be the ones to officially tell you that you don’t. Smartphone cameras not only produce high-quality images (and video) they are also readily available. You do not need to make a special purchase in order to take high quality images for your cake business.
Tips for photographing your cakes
Setup your photo area. A photo area is a place where you can set up and stage your cake. The easiest way to accomplish this is by using a tri-fold poster board draped in a plain white cloth. You will want to make sure the cloth is free of wrinkles. You can also use photography backdrops, but those are more expensive. Another alternative is to use a large box, outfitted with white covering. This setup will need to be modified with extra lighting as the box will block out light from the top and sides.
Use natural light or white light. Natural light is best because it is bright, and free. You will need to pay attention to the the location of the sun in order to ensure the highest quality lighting. If you catch the sun in the wrong place/time, your images will be darker, and come out with shadows or tint. Alternatively, you can use artificial light. You will need the bright white daytime light bulbs which will simulate the look of natural sunlight.
Adjust the settings on your phone. Each phone will vary slightly, so you will want to adjust the settings and take a few test shots to ensure the image is to your liking.
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