Those who know me, know I've always been a photography nerd. I was often seen cruising around my high school with my trusty Canon EOS 650, snapping pix for yearbook or just because. I was the guy who lugged around a point and shoot before it was so easy to take candids with small digital cameras and your mobile phone. Well, before mobile phones really! I always had a pocket full of 35mm and was ready to go. Wait... is that why that girl at Scandia asked me if I was happy to see her? Blast, I was never good with the ladies!
Naturally, when Reva began Merci Beaucoup, I was more than keen to take up the photo end of things, often snapping 40 or 50 shots of even the simplest cakes. We'll get to how I manage those files later, but in today's media soaked world, you need to be on top of documenting your work visually and a savvy business pro will do a lot more than setting up a Flickr account or creating a desktop file. Strike a pose shop talkers and let's get....
Candid About Cameras!
If I had written this a couple years ago, we'd be talking megapixels and memory cards, but in today's digital marketplace, unless you're buying a pink Barbie camera for $20 at the checkout stand of a backwater gas station, chances are it is a fairly good piece of technology. Still, you want something better than your camera phone. Those are great for quick tweets, but even with the advances in cell cameras, they still look blah. Your website or example books will look unprofessional filled with your iPhone pix, so grab a dedicated camera.
This is the point where I'm supposed to recommend something isn't it? The big digital SLRs are awesome (the Nikon D90 et al.), but unless you have a lot of expendable income, they're not necessary. A good solid point in shoot by a trusted brand will be fine. I always like Canon, but have had great luck with Olympus over the years. Well, except for the time I dropped one in a toilet in Michigan, but that's another story! We have one of each right now. Our Canon Sure Shot is newer, and has slightly better quality in low light, which is great for those darkened banquet rooms. Just make sure you do a little comparison shopping online first and that you find the best camera you can for your budget.
Memory Lane
Not all memory cards are equal! There are different classes and the higher the class, the faster it will write information. It's not imperative that you have a "pro" card (like a class 10), but I do notice a difference and if you're shooting any sort of video through your camera, especially high definition, you need a quality card. HD will not write to the $10 card next to the checkout. It is also a good idea to have a spare card in your bag, so budget that into your spending.
The image here is from the brand PNY. It is readily available and the most affordable brand on the market. (They also make good thumb drives.) From my experience, they've been great and beat the hell out of the higher priced brand names like SanDisk.
The Power of Three
I'm talking tripods folks and not the skimpy cheap ones either! Invest in a quality tripod, do not pick one up in the camera aisle at Target! If it is less than say $80, chances are it will not be solid enough to withstand travel in your car and repeated set up and tear down. It could even fall over in wind or from faulty leg mechanisms. You need it to be solid, durable, and stable. If you are taking photos of your cakes to post on the web or social media etc., you should bite the bullet and invest in a good tripod now, not later. Personally, I recommend something from Manfrotto. I have a "3029" which is a simple little tripod that has survived multiple environments for over six years now and it shows no sign of fading.
Of course, without one there's never three! I also love having a monopod at the ready. They're smaller, easier to lug around, and in good lighting will provide you with the stability you need to take good close ups of your cake. I also prefer them when using a video camera as they give me the mobility to move around quickly.
WARNING:
Have you seen these suspects above? They are cute and portable and will attempt to win you heart, but they are not the answer for your cake photos. They simply do not have enough versatility for the wide range of situations that will pop up over your cake career. Save them for your family camping trips!
Technique
Nothing is worse than a straight on, vertical photo of a tall cake. There's no scale, there's no flavor. It looks like it belongs in a dry encyclopedia from the 60s. Go Dutch!! Put some tilt on your lens, get the camera up high and look down at that gorgeous topper you just made or sling it down low looking up with an ant's eye view. Experiment! Yes, you can grab your basic eye level photo, but if there is a flower on there that looks incredible or first class piping, don't walk away without a good picture of your work.
Coverage
Take photos!! Take different angles, close ups, shoot looking up, shoot looking down, shoot shoot shoot!! Get yourself in the picture, get the flowers in the picture, the cake cutter, take a pic of it in the car etc. It is always better to delete crappy photos later than realize you only took two and they're both fuzzy.
A Home Studio
If you want to take some good shots before the delivery, you might want to consider investing in some lights or having a well lit area in your kitchen etc. where you can set up the cake. Movable track lighting is a good source of light, allowing you to "fill in" shadows. The most important thing is to have a clean background. The area should be free of clutter. Save the spattering of corn starch and dirty spatulas with the cake sitting on a turntable for your informal Facebook updates. When photographing for your website or books, you want the cake to be the center of the attention.
The Upload Conundrum
OMG, do I have cake photos all over like five computers!! My life is buried beneath cake photos!! We could talk for days about all mistakes and successes in managing our photos, but here's a few highlights:
- First, buy a dedicated external hard drive for your cake pictures. Something in the 500 GB range at least.
- Second, upload everything, but save and sort only the chosen few. The sooner you can look at your pix and make editorial decisions about which ones are best, the better. A good rule of thumb is to not keep more than 10 shots of any one cake.
- Third, create folders in your hard drive. Divide by date, or theme or whatever works for you, but small folders with under a 100 photos are easier to navigate when looking for that one particular cake. Has "weddings" gotten too full? Then create weddings 2 and 3 and 4 or weddings 2006 part 1.
- Fourth, keep a folder marked "best" in which you put those photos that just stand head and shoulders above the rest. There's some magic in the shot and you know it is worthy of being your fan page's profile pic or the cover of a magazine.
- Fifth, after you have the top shots, make decisions about where you want to put them online. Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr etc. But wait!!! Before you do that, watermark them! Slap your name across that thing like you're tagging a New York City subway train! That's your cake, own it!
- Sixth, buy another external hard drive and backup your first one! You can never backup enough!!
Study Up!
There are great photo books in your local bookstore as well as an endless amount of advice and videos online about photography. Check something out, and give yourself a good primer, especially on lighting. I like DIY Photography online, a good site with a range of articles for beginners to pros. Also look at different photo heavy magazines for inspiration, not just cake mags. Truthfully, most photographers snapping cakes for a magazine just want to get the job done and collect a paycheck, so seeing how different objects are represented in more artistic endeavors can only help you.
All in all, have fun with it and let your imagination take over! Like I said, better to delete crappy pix than not have a good one.
Alright, next week we will get to the subject of branding!! Have a great week cakers!
Thanks. Great advice.
Posted by: LaGonda Veal | 06 July 2011 at 06:31 AM
Study up! Knowledge is definitely the key to a photographers success. I typically like to tell people who are just starting up to take local photography classes. Most people will buy the camera and expect the shots to come out amazing, this is not realistic. You have to know how to use the camera, then the shots will come. Overall great information on your post!
Posted by: William Sullivan | 04 August 2011 at 12:13 PM