A pretty good wedding cake - and picture :)

seeker

So I have this picture of a wedding cake that *I* personally think looks just fabulous.

This is not me tooting my horn about my skills as a photographer - on the contrary, I rarely ever come up with something that looks as good as this (well, as good as *I* think this looks, anyway); and that's the problem.

I cannot place what it is about this photo that makes it look so good, and so I was hoping to get some input on this. The goal is to be able to reproduce this consistently.

Anyone want to take a shot?

Scott_Quier

Here's what I see that adds to the photo:

• The most significant thing is the lighting. It appears to be coming from a window. Since the light is not coming from the direction of the camera, you have shadows that bring detail to life and give a more 3D appearance.
• It's sharp
• The background is there, but it's nice and calm - not a huge distraction like some places I've seen.
• You have foreground elements as well - the napkin hanging off the edge of the table adds this interest.
• Another, secondary and not distracting, point of interest is the bouquet on the right of the cake.

There is one distractor - the very dark something just above the bouquet. If it were my photo, I would clone that out - simple 2 minute job (if that).

saurora

Scott pretty much nailed it, I think! The lighting works well here. In addition to the nice, soft window light, which makes the cake looks so elegant, you have some additional light coming from the right of the cake (a door or another window perhaps) which adds some fill and interesting highlights on what could have been a darker side of the cake. I like the details on the table, but I also enjoy how complimentary the surrounding walls (with the wood mouldings and formal pilars) are to the very traditional and elegant wedding cake. You should be pleased, it's a very nice shot!

Scott_Quier

saurora wrote:

Scott pretty much nailed it, I think! The lighting works well here. In addition to the nice, soft window light, which makes the cake looks so elegant, you have some additional light coming from the right of the cake (a door or another window perhaps) which adds some fill and interesting highlights on what could have been a darker side of the cake. I like the details on the table, but I also enjoy how complimentary the surrounding walls (with the wood mouldings and formal pilars) are to the very traditional and elegant wedding cake. You should be pleased, it's a very nice shot!

Yup - I missed the fill light. Good call!

seeker

Scott_Quier wrote:

Here's what I see that adds to the photo:

• The most significant thing is the lighting. It appears to be coming from a window. Since the light is not coming from the direction of the camera, you have shadows that bring detail to life and give a more 3D appearance.
• It's sharp
• The background is there, but it's nice and calm - not a huge distraction like some places I've seen.
• You have foreground elements as well - the napkin hanging off the edge of the table adds this interest.
• Another, secondary and not distracting, point of interest is the bouquet on the right of the cake.

There is one distractor - the very dark something just above the bouquet. If it were my photo, I would clone that out - simple 2 minute job (if that).

Thanks for the comments - to me, if I were to pick something out, it would be the "quality" of the light. That is a very hard thing for me to get a handle on and describe, but I can tell when the light is all wrong, and for me, the light is all *right* in this photo.

For info sake - I used fill flash (an SB800) bounced off the wall in this photo. I think because the wall color is close to the cake, there was no noticeable color cast I had to deal with.

The "dark something" is a wall moulding, I believe, and definitely something I can take out using Photoshop.

- Brian

seeker

saurora wrote:

Scott pretty much nailed it, I think! The lighting works well here. In addition to the nice, soft window light, which makes the cake looks so elegant, you have some additional light coming from the right of the cake (a door or another window perhaps) which adds some fill and interesting highlights on what could have been a darker side of the cake. I like the details on the table, but I also enjoy how complimentary the surrounding walls (with the wood mouldings and formal pilars) are to the very traditional and elegant wedding cake. You should be pleased, it's a very nice shot!

Thanks for the comments - if I could reproduce this type of shot on a regular basis, then I believe my overall photography would improve *significantly*.

Kind of like those couple of years I played golf. On a rare occasion I would hit a ball or two very, very well. The frustration came in trying to reproduce that "lucky" shot

- Brian