The Edible Hobby

Something I love about taking photos is the way in which it allows you to combine hobbies, as evidenced so absurdly in my previous post. On other occasions, I’ve attempted to exhibit my love of the cello through photography. Recently, I’ve been able to extend my photographic endeavours to capture a hobby of my significant other: confectionary. Over the last several weeks we have combined as food stylist and photographer respectively, in anticipation of a food photography competition in my club (the fruits of which, for the most part, will be saved for a future post; I want to concentrate on a particular endeavour here).

Throughout these food photography ventures, an idea has been bubbling under the surface: what if we reversed the traditional protocol of using photography to express passion for a hobby, and used that hobby to exhibit a passion for photography? In an homage to my trusty 40D, my first and still current weapon of choice, we created a DSLR cake.

Though uncertain of the suitability of the metaphor it felt like we were, in a sense, breaking the fourth wall. The camera is traditionally the silent observer which captures my love for other hobbies; but now, we were staring back down the barrel of the lens.

Rather than try to describe how the creation went from raw cake mix to RAW file, I have compiled a collection of photographs that document the cake from ingredients to the last brush stroke of food dye (click for larger):

The work was spread over two days, with the second day consisting mostly of decorating the icing. It was quite difficult to make that first cut; though the juxtaposition between the cake and the recognisable shape of the camera was one of the shots I was most looking forward to taking, so that served as motivation to take the leap. From a photographic point of view, it was challenging to do aesthetic justice to the cake because of the reflective surface of the food colouring.

Many of my other half’s previous works have formed part of various birthday presents; see the LEGO brick, for example, bestowed on me two years ago, or last year’s special cello cake. It was great to have been involved in one of her elaborate schemings from inception (and I managed to contribute enough to not to have felt like bystander, which is a bonus). As yet I’m not sure which, if any, will be used in the upcoming club competition. Honestly, that original premise for its creation has become secondary to the tremendous fun we had in executing the idea.

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