How to Take Pretty Pastry Pictures Using Your Camera Phone

Word of mouth is now just a runner-up in the best marketing tools. The new trend now is to go VIRAL or to be known in the internet, particularly through social media. If you want your baking business to thrive, you have to evolve with the social media platforms. You have to put up a Facebook page or Instagram (IG) account where you can share the photos of your products. However, there’s an unspoken rule in posting on IG: your photos must be Instagram-worthy. That means that your pictures must be pretty and inviting or else people will not remember you.

How do you take good pictures of your cakes? Simple. Use a digital SLR camera. But not all bakers have one (they would rather buy a high-quality oven or mixer), and have no time to learn advanced photography. According to a survey of baking enthusiasts from We Bake With Love Facebook Group, most of them use their camera phones in taking pictures of their baked goodies.

As photographer-author Chase Jarvis would say, the best camera is one that you have with you. And what is that? Nothing else but your precious smart phone. You just have to learn some basic techniques in photography that you can use to make beautiful pictures of your masterpieces. In this post, I’m sharing with you some of these techniques that I’ve learned through the years, and some pointers that I’ve got from professional photographers.

Choose a clean background. Since you are using a phone camera, the depth of field is not sharp, meaning the background does not appear as blurry as you want them to be. For instance, I took this photo using a smart phone, thus, the objects in the background are very visible:

During the event, my friend Gail Bitoon of Everyday Sunday Studios took a photo of the cake using his DSLR. Thus, the depth of field is perfect.

So to be safe, remove all the mess on your background. You may choose a spot with white or cream wall painting to get a clean dainty look.

You may also use a white box (buy online) to achieve the magazine-worthy look. If you are taking a picture of a product on a plate, choose a unique plate with plain or minimal design. Matte dish plates or trays look best on photos because the light do not bounce on them.

If you cannot find a good background or you have no more time to clean up all the ingredients on your table, just make a close up or tight shot.

Set the point of focus. Pardon the photography jargon. Point of focus refers to the area in your picture where you want people to put the most attention. Before you take a shot, you choose which part of you cake do you want to focus. You can set the point of focus by tapping on it on the viewer before you take the actual photo. After you tap, an orange square will show up on your point of focus and the other areas will appear slightly blurred and darker. For example, I chose the panda in this view to be my point of focus. The orange square appeared and the other objects became less clear.

Use natural light. Ambient light or the light already present in the room without the additional lighting, brings out the natural beauty of your baked goodies. Open the windows and put a table beside it then shoot. Turning on more light inside your house or bakery might create shadows or glares in the scene. So better shoot your cake at daytime when there’s enough sunlight going inside your house/bakery.

I took a picture of this pizza slice at the doorstep of The Pastry House to use the natural light coming from the outside.

You may also go outside to your garden to shoot. Just make sure you’re not under a green acrylic roof just like this one I took when I was a newbie.

Follow the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is one of the basic and most popular rules in photography. The principle behind this rule is that you divide the image into three horizontally and vertically, forming 9 square parts. Use intersections or the lines as guide where you can place your point of focus. This enables the viewer of the photo to easily appreciate it because studies have shown that people’s eyes usually go to the intersection points most naturally instead of the center or the image.

This image from itspinkpot.com best illustrates the difference of a picture following the rule of thirds from the one not using the rule.

Here are some samples of pictures following the rule:

Look for patterns for more drama. Look for lines, S-curves, triangles, and other patterns that may appear in your image. These patterns make your image more compelling and nice to look at.

You may also take a close-up shot of what’s inside your cake for viewers to get a “taste” in their mind. They will subconsciously desire the cake and order from you.

Put your camera on HDR mode. HDR or high dynamic range setting makes life easier. When you use this setting, the camera will automatically process images better than usual to capture greater detail from bright and dark areas in your photo. In short, HDR setting will automate the blending of light and darkness to come up with a good picture.

Aside from the kinda technical techniques, here are some points to take note of as well:

• Draw inspiration from others. Download the Pinterest app on your phone and search for pictures of cakes/goodies. Choose some that catches your interest. Try to remake that shot using your products. You may also follow other bakers’ accounts with best photos so your eyes would be trained to identify the beautiful pictures.

• Go simple. You may use props or styling to jazz up your cake but it is not required to make pretty photos. The most important thing is that you showcase your product, make it look good (and yummy) to make the viewer of the photo feel good and want to taste it.

• Do not ever grab photos from others to promote your own products even if you have exactly the same product. Put yourself in other’s shoes and for sure you’ll feel bad when somebody uses your photo for his own benefit.

• Put watermark on your photo. This will be your ID mark so that no one else can use your photo. You may put the name of your business or better yet, put the link going to your page so that potential customers can easily track you. You may download apps to do this. I personally use Over.

• Do not use beautify effect or Camera360 app. I know a lot of people who always use the Camera360 or beautify effect of their camera app. Using such will give a blurry filter that is not fit for taking photos of cakes. It will just make your photos look less appetizing and unreal.

The best advice I can give you is to include taking pictures in your baking session. I have baked so many cakes which did not appear on my Facebook page or IG account simply because I got too lazy to take pictures or was in a hurry to pack the product for delivery. It was a missed marketing opportunity, which can be translated as lost sale because somebody who might have seen your picture could have ordered a cake from you. So learn from me, always take multiple shots of your cakes and goodies before letting them go.

Share pics of your pretty pastries on our Facebook group, We Bake With Love.

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Photo credits

All photos are mine except for the following:

The best camera is one that you have with you from Seanwes.com

Silas and Isla cake from Everyday Sunday Studios

Rule of thirds (plant) from itspinkpot.com Lemon cheesecake from pixabay.com.