Pierre vd Walt – Victoria Bean Bakery
Pierre vd Walt
It’s not every day that I get commissioned to photograph cakes but this was an exceptional experience with Victoria Martin from Victoria Bean Bakery on Monday, when we spent time capturing her beautiful creations.
The brief was simple, I obviously needed to capture the phenomenal detail that Victoria manages to craft the cakes with, but more importantly, we needed to capture the character of each of her masterpieces.
My “weapons of choice” for this shoot were the FujiFilm X-T1 paired with one of my favourite lenses, the Fujinon XF35mm F1.4R. The X-T1 is currently the “workhorse” of my equipment, this because of obvious image quality and ease of use but also its ability to tether to the iMac for convenient, high-res previews from which the client can make final selections. As with all of Fuji’s prime lenses, the XF35mm was chosen for its pin-sharp focus and the fact that it accurately records perspective and proportion with just about zero distortion on the same.
BEHIND THE SCENES:
The set was lit with a couple of Elinchrom RX heads lighting through a 2-Stop scrim, an additional RX head directly onto the subject from behind for a catch-light and various reflectors to highlight the intricate detail of each cake. I deliberately decided on a simple lighting set-up as the cakes were all so intricate, pretty and interesting that they didn’t require any additional drama to make them come to life.
With the shots in the bag and a happy client to boot, it seems with the X-Series one can have one’s cake…and eat it!
Pierre vd Walt – Professional X-Photographer – NextGen Creative Media
Pierre vd Walt
