Chocolate Birthday Surprise

It's been a couple of days since the last update, so I decided to bring a tasty treat with me upon my return.  Recently, My Lovely Assistant celebrated her birthday and the cake for the event was made by her Aunt.  The same Aunt who has just finished classes in creating these chocolate creations.  I was asked to take a few photographs of the cake, and it stressed me out a little bit.  I've never been totally happy with my cake photographs, and I wanted to do my best to make a nice photograph with this one.  That resulted in an almost 40minute photo session while the others in the room waited in silent patience while I pretty much rearranged the entire dining room table, several times.  I tried bouncing the light of my flash off of several surfaces, but couldn't get a result I was looking for.  There was a large shadow that was falling on the near side of the cake, and I really wanted to see all of the layers.  So, I thought to myself, what's the best way to get rid of a shadow?  Add some more light.  We found a flashlight, put some white wrapping tissue over the light to soften it, and My Lovely Assistant lived up to her name by putting up with my directions on where to point the flashlight.  That's right, I made her work during her birthday supper.  Looking back, I kind of wished that we had a second flashlight because there was another shadow that I would have liked to get rid of in the second photograph.  Shadow notwithstanding, I actually really like these photographs.  They're maybe not as good as the cake was tasty, but I think they're the best cake photographs that I've taken to date.  I also really liked how well the lighting made the colour come of of the wood in the first photograph.  The little candle holders in the background added a little something to the photograph, but I also took one with nothing in the background, to see the difference.  I like them all.

The first photograph was taken at f/5, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  The second photograph was taken at f/5.6, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm and the third photograph was taken at f/5, 1/250sec, ISO 100 at 24mm.  Can't wait for the next birthday.