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Here’s a few more of a new cake I brought home today. There are more wide shots, but the focus is really off. I need to set up another something for a background… I don’t want to have the same curtains in the shot for every cake I shoot.

Having these cakes here without any time constraints or people standing over my shoulder has been great. I’m able to take a bunch of shots and see what works. The one location shoot I did for her was sort of lucky because I hadn’t thought much about what I was going to do. I was really unprepared but managed to make some thing work with what was there. I’m glad I managed, but I want to be more proactive next time around.

Alicia and I were also talking about coming up with some props to include in some of the shots. It’s a great idea, so we’re planning a shopping day sometime soon to hit a few of the discount housewares stores (like Big Lots, Marshall’s, TJ Maxx, etc) to find cheap things to add to the ambiance of the photographs.

Once we’ve accumulated another half dozen or so cakes I’ll put together a bound photo book for her to use as her portfolio when she meets clients and goes to wedding shows.

I really need to finish up her website… another cake or two and I’ll have plenty of images from which I can work up the remaining graphics.

Last weekend Alicia made this fake wedding cake so I could take some more pictures. I brought it home Monday, but decided to buy a couple more flash guns so pictures had to wait until this weekend.

I’m using the beauty dish behind the diffusion panel in these shots to the right of the camera as the main light along with a snooted flash opposite the main aimed at the flowers on top. I’m still learning lights and mostly just throwing stuff up and seeing what works. So far, I’m getting results, but it’s mostly pure dumb luck at this point.

Something else I’m learning from Dawn is that the shot is only half the battle: post-processing can make or break a photograph. Which isn’t to say that the capture itself doesn’t matter. The thing I have to keep in mind is that the two work together to varying degrees. I’ve known this, for sure, but it’s nice to be reminded of things every now and then.

These were taken in my kitchen with Ginny’s curtains as a backdrop. In the future I’ll wait until it’s dark out to shoot in there so I have to do less work on the background.

The National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia (September 2003).