Luke's Cake Smash Session | Orange County Photographer
I always love trying something new!! When my wonderful friend Lynne reached out to me about cake smash session for her sweet little Luke, my mind started racing with ideas. I'm normally an outdoors, natural-light photographer (I mean, when you live somewhere as beautiful and sunny as Orange County, why wouldn't you be??), but I just don't L O V E outdoor cake smash sessions. I worry about dirt and bugs, the ground is never quite as flat as you want it to be and you end up with a lopsided looking cake... Some people can pull it off, but I am just not there yet. Needless to say, I was so excited when Lynne's inspiration photos were a little more "studio" looking.
Since Lynne's older son had a cake smash session a few years back, I wanted find some common things to tie them together, so when she put them side by side, they would at least feel somewhat cohesive. We chose to go with some bunting in shades of blue, and stick with a gorgeous clean white background (well, bone-colored seamless paper, if I'm being technical).
Lynne ordered a cake from her favorite local bakery, and we were ready to go. We had originally planned to do the session in her garage with the backdrop setup, and a strobe light / soft box, but on the day of the session, it was just waaaay too hot! So, we moved it inside her home! Thankfully her house has hard floors that were easy to cleanup, and enough space for us to work!
We started with some cute shots of little Luke, showing what a big 1 year old he was! I am just obsessed with his little shoes! (And did you see his two tiny teeth in that big smile?? So many heart eyes!). Thankfully he was all smiles for this and definitely showed off his little personality!
Finally, we moved on to the cake smashing! Like most kids, he had no clue what to do with this giant blue thing in front of him, and just kinda stared for a while. Mom had to help him dig in a little, and give him a few tastes. Seriously, I think that is 99% of kids!
Once he got in there and started tasting it, he was having fun. He didn't really eat much of it, but he loved having it on his hands, feet, and he was intrigued by the texture. I always crack up when kids put their face right into the cake to take a bite, so I may or may not have tried to show him what that would look like by biting directly into the cake myself. (Spoiler Alert: I definitely did. #workperks!)
When all was said and done, Luke had successfully smashed his cake, he had a great time doing it, and we all got to enjoy watching this little guy celebrate his first birthday! I can't wait to photograph Luke again soon and watch as he follows in his big brother's footsteps!
