These Photos Were Printed with Cake Frosting on Watercolor Paper

There are quite a few unusual photo printing ideas that have emerged over the years, but photographer Lawrence Sumulong‘s latest technique is one of the sweetest we’ve seen — literally. For his project Lacuna, Sumulong printed his photos on edible frosting layers designed for use on cakes.

The frosting is then transferred onto fine art watercolor paper and distorted with water and paintbrushes.

Lacuna charts my travels throughout the historic sites and landscapes of Maui looking for scenes and moments that represent the social realities and tensions that run through the island,” Sumulong tells PetaPixel. “The fact that Maui is a stock honeymoon destination called to mind weddings and wedding cakes. It was from there that it made sense to print on something edible since so much of this experience was about how we consume culture.”

The photographer says that the look of his prints was inspired by gum bichromate print, an alternative process that produces a painterly quality that he’s fond of.

Sumulong is a Filipino who was born and raised in the US mainland, and he says his choice of using frosting is also “a gesture to the resource (sugar) that the first wave of Filipino immigrants labored to cultivate.”

A single locked gate encloses an open field on the Ke’anae Peninsula, which was created from lava flow originating from the Haleakala Crater. The stone church in the background was built in 1856 and is the only remaining building after the devastating tsunami of 1946 that killed 24 people. Now, the area is a popular pit stop where tourists can buy banana bread during the famous “Road to Hana”.
A tourist watches a Filipino timeshare worker carry an industrial sized cooling unit in Kihei, Maui.
Amidst the popular camping grounds at Waiʻanapanapa State Park rests a private and ancient graveyard, the Honokalani ‘Ohana Cemetery.
A white car overgrown by foliage in Kihei, Maui.
A Hawaiian boy hidden in the background of Waiʻanapanapa State Park arranges lava rock and coral in the private and ancient Honokalani ‘Ohana Cemetery.
Three stalks of aloe taken from a plant bed in Kihei , Maui and wrapped in an issue of the local paper, “Maui Time” whose headline that week was “THE PROBLEM WITH CULTURAL HERITAGE TOURISM, AND WHY THE CONTINUED MISUSE OF HAWAIIAN CULTURE IS WRONG”.
A white tourist poses for a photo to use for his dating profile picture with the Waimoku Falls in the background. A sign explaining the origin of the waterfall read “He wai makamaka ‘ole” or “Water that recognizes no friend.”
A Hawaiian day laborer works inside a hole in Kihei, Maui.
A white boat overgrown by foliage in Kihei, Maui.
A sign found in La Perouse Bay. The area contains many archaeological sites, including fishing shrines, salt pans, and heiau, or religious platforms. It is the site of Maui’s most recent volcanic activity. The bay’s Hawaiian name is Keoneʻoʻio. It was later named for the French explorer Captain Jean-François de Galaup, comte de La Pérouse.
At the summit of the massive shield volcano, Haleakalā or “House of the Sun” in the evening.

You can find more of Sumulong’s work on his website and Instagram.


Image credits: Photographs by Lawrence Sumulong and used with permission

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