Let me eat cake

As I have said, I have been doing the MPA weekly homework and this weeks subject was cake. I could have just taken a product photo, of a cake but that isn’t exactly my style. I thought I would create something a little bit more silly, which would hopefully make people laugh.

The idea

I could see the image that I wanted in my head, right from the moment that I saw the homework title. I don’t take myself too seriously and a photo of me, just about to bite into some cake. The shot, had certain complexities. If you notice, my body and head leans to the right, whilst the cake and hat lean to the left. This gives more shaped to the image and allows, me to show more of my face (and open mouth).

One of the hardest thing was where my eyes should look. If I was looking at the cake, my eyes would be lower, so I have to look in between the cake and camera. The bulging part eyes was quite natural for me. Getting my hand and cake position right, was also tricky.

My hands are not naturally positioned but angled out and in, so more of the cake shows. I also had my fingers go under the cake, though being British, it was just natural for my little finger to stick out.

The idea of it being a birthday, photo came on the day but made sense. I had a few, birthday cone hats, around the house (which I bought for Reggies birthday. The shirt, is one of my sillier ones and I thought went well with the silliness of the shot.

I knew that I was going to buy chocolate cake and having a light background mad perfect sense, with the brown of the cake contrasting well with the lighter tone.

Setup

I went to my trusty, 16-35mm and shot at 20mm. This meant that I had to get quite closed to the camera, which had certain advantages and disadvantages. Shooting at 20mm, exaggerates my expression. It also made it much easier to trigger the camera whilst staying in the same position. The big disadvantage is background, has to be completely let down and unfortunately, I have discovered that the white of my background is in 2 different shades, which is a nightmare to edit, as it is up at the top around my head.

I shot at f/14. I probably could have shot at f/10 but this was a safe option and I know the 16-35mm handles f/14 well. I shot with 4 lights.

Key light: Diffused large beauty dish (silver), Straight on, at 45° down onto me.
Reflector under camera
Hair lights:2 x grided strip box, one each side , slightly behind me
Background light: Diffused Nikon SB-900 on ground.

The lighting came together quite well, though I did have a few issue with the speed light, being on the floor. It works as a slave but was having issues seeing the other flashes going off.

Edit

Above is the straight out of camera image. It shows a few things. Firstly, I didn’t quite get myself completely in shot.

I took, quite a few images but this photo stood out. I was the right distance from the camera and more important, I got the expression right. Fixing the hair was relatively easy, I just used the clone and tool, to finish off the hair. Of course, I had to add a expand the canvas to the right of the image and then fill in the canvas to match with the colour of the background. The main problem with this blending to the background around the hair, which did take some time.

What was a much bigger issue, was the 2 white tones on the background. This isn’t a big issue normally as I don’t use such a wide lens for portraits, so I need less background. It took a age to get right, with me almost giving up.

I also had to get rid of the oil marks on my sensor. I have cleaned it myself for several years but it really needs a proper clean.

At some point, I decided to give it an warmer tint and it almost got to the final image but after saving, I wasn’t happy and went back to fix the issue.

So, generally I am happy with the image. I don’t think it is perfect. The birthday hat feels a little blown out. I did try to bring it back a little in photoshop (something I should have done in C1P) but it wasn’t working very well. I fixing the backgound is a big of a nightmare and is most noticeable under my hand. I may got and try and fix the issue but the more I tinker the worse it will generally get at this stage.

I did brighten and sharpen the image, around the cake and eyes but not overly. I also cropped the image a little from the top and bottom, which just helped slightly.

Really the image, achieved what I wanted, it is a fun and looks pretty good generally.