8 May 2013

Baby Smash Cake Photo Shoot using Burlap as a Photo Backdrop

So April is birthday month in our house. Three out of five of us celebrate our birthdays in April (I'm not one of them), so that means plenty of parties and cake, and planning for me!

Harry was turning one and we wanted to make it a special occasion, so we gave him a smash cake.


For those of you unfamiliar with the Smash Cake trend, you basically make a beautiful cake for your baby and then let them 'Smash it' to pieces whilst you stand by photographing each candid moment! My seven year old was horrified that we would 'waste cake' like that! But as I explained to him, it's not like a one year old really gets to eat the cake so this was a way for Harry to enjoy his birthday in a one year old kind of way.

I made him a chocolate cake with vanilla icing (looks better in the pictures than chocolate!), topped with blueberries, some blue fairy floss, a paper number 1 and a balloon.

We set the stage on the back deck and I needed a backdrop for the shoot. As Burlap abounds in our house, I had just purchased 5 metres of Burlap, which was perfect for the backdrop. I draped it over the deck handrail and down onto the floor and then positioned the cake on top.

The Burlap worked really well as a back drop. It was cost effective, reflected and diffused the natural light really well, and best of all easy to clean with just a hose off. It also provided a really neutral background which allowed the baby and the cake to be the feature in the photos rather than backdrop. I think it would really well in a number of settings. You could use it for weddings or family photos when the photo is about the subjects rather than the location.

Here's how the shoot turned out.





Harry is actually a bit of a neat freak and once he felt the icing on his hands he didn't want to touch it again and was more interested in the balloon, but I think he had a great time anyway, and we have some lovely keepsake photos.



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