„With food I always count on surprises.“

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„With food I always count on surprises.“

Interview with Christopher Mick, Foodfotograf

Christopher Mick

How did you become a food photographer and what fascinates you about this?

Actually, a customer did bring me into this. A big food manufacturer looked for a new photographer for the packaging of his own brand. I was recommended there and thus originated a creative connection lasting till this day. In addition, I got to know bit by bit cooks and stylists and thus the food subject became more and more interesting for me. To my surprise I was also asked sometime whether I want to take a photo of machines and of production plants on location. Because my customers invest substantial sums in their facilities to reach new standards, they want to communicate this of course also by advertising. So I started to take a photo of baking streets, of silo facilities and potato washing machines. The other side invisible for the consumers of food products. Honestly I am fascinated every time by the dimensions of such facilities and by the ideas which lie behind. Today without high tech nothing runs – no matter whether in a slowfood-baking room which supplies to themselves almost CO2 neutrally with energy or in a gigantically big high tech production plant for breadcrumbs. The photographer must find in all tangle from information his point of view and put outside the subject of the picture quite clearly by means of light and perspective. Actually, the work is similar in the photo studio. Indeed, here the spatial dimensions are the complete opposite, but a small basil leaf has to be rearranged, for example, for a packaging photo several times until the perception of the buyer is optimally influenced. Here it is fought for every detail until the picture is perfect.

What is different in photographing food from other objects?

Food lives and changes. Who does not consider this, will have problems with the planning of his pictures. A razor or a car waits, until I have put my light, but a sauce mirror on a plate can be offended by waiting too long and take on sad edges. Here we have arrived on the subject foodstyling. As a rule I co-operate with food stylists. I am often grateful for the product knowledge which the stylist brings into the job. The preparation of strange food are as different as their possible combinations. One comes to an agreement or learns just spontaneously. Although we today are in the position to be procured almost of every food, it happens that something is not available at the time of a shooting. This has happened to me with fresh cherries for an icecream shooting in January a few years ago. The stylist has saved me, while he has dug in his deep freezer at home and supported me smilingly with the red fruits – they were so perfect that at that time he had to freeze them and there they lay sleeping until the prince did wake them up!

What technical equipment do you use in studio and on location?

In studio or on location I always work with a view camera when working on a still life or an in general immobile motive for which I have enough time. The sharpness can be controlled in the best way and my food motive don’t have legs to run away. If I am in restaurants or on the street or on a meadow with people I must operate dynamically. There the reflex camera is first choice. Same for the light technology. In the studio we work on the light, until the composition is right. On location I must estimate the available light first of all and then fill in with portable light. This is always exciting because one can be more spontaneous than in the studio. At the customers place one cannot switch off simply a few lamps, either because then half of the production stands still, or simply because it is technically not possible. Then only post-editing helps, which is also not that uncreative, however.

How do you stage nutrition in front of the camera?

Every means are right to bring to bear the special qualities. Everything what you heard about the tricks within food photography is true, but this refers primarily to the styling. As a photographer I am confronted to a certain task and I must fulfil this. With an easy product like a Hamburger presented as a mega star, I should choose as first a suitable perspective and equip my model with the most fresh ingredients and provide for a glistening light. How would peas then look as mega stars, however, if this was my task? For every food it needs a new consideration. There are just more recipes than food elements.

What about post-editing?

Today in the packaging area practically every picture is post-edited. Colours are strengthened or corrected. Masking is done and picture components exchanged or arranged anew. However, the most efficient way is still a good layout and then the picture made in one shot and then the picture is worked on digitally already during production. The customer sees his ready picture already during the shooting. This way, you have production safety by layout.

What food poses the greatest challenges?

For me personally it is chocolate. It’s fascinating, not only because it is so tasty... the handling though is very strenuous. Beer is likewise a challenge, but I face it with pleasure, I mean only in an photographical way. Ice cream has to be mentioned too. The greated challenges are posed by food which presents itself differently than we expected. There is suddenly a tendon in the meat or the crumb frees itself of the bread. The fruits in the prototype are smaller than in the later harvest version or the wave cut of the frozen carrots is more topical than the present blades in the studio kitchen. So honestly – challenges one has enough. With food I always count on surprises.

What has changed within food photography in the last decades?

I cannot report yet about so many decades, but I think, it has for some reasons become easier to produce a good picture. Today the consumer knows much more food than years ago. Cooking shows and magazines have worked miracle. Twenty years ago one still had to explain, why a product is generally good or even helps. Today a product must simply be there and assert itself with the means given to him. In addition it needs an image and a picture, but no big explanations. Also the reproduction technology has improved massively and the photographers have got a lot of freedom to play with the sharpness. Today thus a relatively blurred picture with torn out lights can be printed and still work charmingly or "lively". This technique of unsharpness also leads to the fact that one must not decorate the sphere of the product or the background any more with costly props and must likewise illuminate this. In the unsharpness quite a lot of otherwise sluggish information becomes blurred, and thus one is quicker in the result. Saving of time and cost savings and less superfluous explicatory information for the viewer. So far so good, but do the pictures not become also more and more similar? I am sure that soon a new fashion will reach us. Maybe supersharp – ready to touch!

Who are your customers and how do you carry out orders?

I work in the food sector for retailers, food manufacturers, packaging designers and magazines. In the area of food technology I get orders from food manufacturers, plant builders and logistics enterprises. Food technology often needs further explaination, so I always get a competent employee put to my side. Before the shooting it is often certain what has to be photographed and in which order. The pressure of time is often huge, because the machines either must be delivered, or the production is specially interrupted for the photographer. Such a shooting can go for two or three days, which is valuable, however, because the amount in usable pictures rises disproportionate.

Talking about food technology: How do you make beautiful pictures of machines?

By making the machine accessible for the viewer. What does it do? What is it able to do better than others? What strikes you? Put the focus on the essentials and even crossing borders. For the machine manufacturer Gerd Gillenkirch I have put machines on acres in the fog. This looks very emotional and has also provided for big attention on the InterFruit 2009 in Berlin in the middle of the economic crisis.

What will the future of food photography look like?

We will always want to see what we eat. This is a controlling mechanism deeply in us. The eye eats with us. Food photography will accompany the development of food and the connected industry – no matter where it goes. As taste and look of food appeals to us, the food photos will entice us to steer our attention for a determining moment on exactly that tasty lusciousness which we have just seen.

Interview: Ralph M. Bloemer, InterMopro.de

Christopher Mick:

Christopher Mick (47) lives in Essen, has studied Communication Design and runs his own photo studio in Düsseldorf-Unterbilk. Self-employed since 1996, first as Art Director and photographer, since a few years exclusively as photographer. Main focus on food and food technology.