Blueberry Cake
Gluten free bundt cake in a light dusting of powdered sugar snowflakes
Gluten free bundt cake in a light dusting of powdered sugar snowflakes
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Sep, 2016Views
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Awards
Winner in Delicious Desserts Photo Challenge
Superb Composition
Outstanding Creativity
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken out on my balcony in a cloudy day. I had baked the blueberry bundt cake and set it on a blue plate on top of dark blue fabric so that the plate would fall into the background without distracting from the cake itself. I had the powdered sugar in a sieve that I shook for the dusting while taking a sequence of several repeated images to catch the 'snow' falling down.Time
This was done in early afternoon, where there was plenty of ambient yet shaded light.Lighting
I had set up a white bounce reflect to give a little bit of light to the shadowed areas, but I didn't want to fully light the cake as I felt the shadowed contrast showed the depth of the cake. The powdered sugar helped to highlight the shape and texture as well.Equipment
I used a Nikon D800 with a 105mm macro lens. I often use this lens even when a situation doesn't necessarily call for macro. A tripod and remote clicker allowed me to time the falling of the powdered sugar with the frame, and a rather fast shutter speed allowed me to "freeze" the powdered sugar to look more like snowflakes than rain.Inspiration
I always loved how powdered sugar looks like falling snow, and wanted to try to capture the "snow" aspect of this dessert.Editing
Post processing was fairly minimal. I used Lightroom and accentuated some of the contrast between the shadows and highlights, and also desaturated the blue a little bit. I also did my standard sharpening etc.In my camera bag
I normally carry my camera body (nikon D800) and a variety of lenses - I am a big fan of zooms so have several that span a wide variety of ranges - 17-35 f/4, 24-70 f/2.8, and 70-200 f/2.8. For food and stills I prefer my 105 macro like I used in this image. I also am a avid tripod user, and also work with an off-camera flash (speedlight) sometimes.Feedback
I think the best advice is planning. I set up everything I liked before I started with the powdered sugar, because I knew I was only going to get one chance at that. Then I did my series of runs with the powdered sugar. I like to build up my scene frame by frame in the camera, so that I can see the effect of each piece on the composition and feel of the image. One when everything else was perfect did I add the powdered sugar "snow" into the image.
