#photocake

Being obsessed with cake, I couldn’t resist posting this picture of a partially consumed photo cake from this past weekend’s celebration.

You may recognize Web “Master” Laura from my May post about her graduation weekend in Urbana, Illinois. She has since moved into her first apartment and started her new job as a Biomathematician at Mount Sinai Hospital. We decided to commemorate this special occasion with a photo cake.

After years of ordering photo cakes (this one is from Stew Leonard’s), I am still amused by seeing my original photography on a cake. It’s quite a change to have my art temporarily appear on a cake, rather than from an arm’s length perspective on a permanent canvas. Then I watch the evolution of its disintegration (brings to mind Dutch 17th century vanitas paintings with decaying fruit and flowers).

But I’m even more amused by how people cut these cakes. They tend to avoid the photo, especially the face and eyes, and frequently the words, until the very end.

Of course, there is the occasional oddball who decides to decapitate the head for dramatic effect… who may never be asked back again…

By now you may be wondering why I didn’t just post the whole cake. So here it is.

Ah, isn’t technology wonderful? It looks like all my own childhood cakes full of beautiful pink roses are ancient history. (Both daughters don’t even like pink. What is this world coming to?)

I have to give credit to Bonnie who ordered the cake (and balloons) with the Fighting Illini’s school colors, and wrote the line, “Welcome to the Real World” to mark Laura’s entry into the job market and the Manhattan apartment scene. There’s nothing like the sticker shock of moving from inexpensive Midwest rents to exorbitant New York City prices, something I experienced first hand in 1979.

While we had a spare moment, Laura re-enacted the photo on the cake.

Now I’ll close with the traditional family cake photo, without which any event would not be complete.

We look forward to celebrating many more happy occasions with photo cakes.

But maybe I spoke too soon… I have this nagging feeling we might be celebrating with video cakes in the future…!