Interview: MPB meets blogger designer Marc Kromer

Food blogger and graphic designer Marc Kromer, based in Germany, spends his time creating and sharing his American-style recipes. Photography is an important part of capturing and sharing his creations, so we caught up with Marc to find out more about his process, camera equipment, background, and influences. Over to you, Marc.

MPB: How did you get into photography?

MK: I started taking pictures during my design studies—first with architectural photography, then portrait photography, and then product photography and food photography. I've always found food photography exciting, long before Instagram made everyone post their meals on the internet. I found the techniques photographers and food stylists use to perfectly showcase their subjects super interesting. My hobby, baking, eventually evolved into a blog—and food photography was naturally an important part of that.

MPB: What camera and equipment do you use? And how important is the equipment to you as a photographer?

MK: For years,  I've been using a very simple Canon EOS 70D with a 50mm lens. It's enough for my purposes. If the subject is well-staged, you can get good pictures even with a simple camera. You don't always need the latest kit.

MPB: What equipment should every food photographer have in the studio?

MK: For food photography, you need a lot of space—not necessarily to photograph the objects, but for all the props you need for the different settings. Even if you are like me, not inclined to create expansive food scenes, you still need some dishes, cutlery, etc. Since I personally don’t like working with flash, I have several daylight lamps that I use if the sun doesn’t feel like shining. So I would definitely recommend those. Besides a tripod, that's really the only thing you really need to properly stage your food. Everything else, such as mounts for overhead shots, is nice to have but not really necessary. Other food photographers will certainly have a longer list.

MPB: Where do you get your inspiration for what you want to photograph next?

MK: What I photograph is primarily based on what I'm cooking and baking at the moment. For that, I get inspiration or ideas from everywhere—a food magazine, cookbook, the display at the bakery, or social media channels. Ideas for what you want to implement next come on the conveyor belt from everywhere.

MPB: You shoot your pictures more from above, is there a particular reason for this? 

MK: I shoot a lot at 45-degree angles and also top shots. These are the perspectives with which we perceive our food in the vast majority of cases when it is in front of us and we want to eat. You simply photograph as the observer would see the food and with the perspective they are most familiar with. Top shots or flat lays are a great way to show the food in its entirety and to build a scene around it that further explains the dish.

MPB: Which dish took you the longest to photograph or prepare, and why?

MK: I always work pretty quickly when photographing. Since I usually don't use too much decoration for my settings, everything is actually always set up and taken down quickly. It only becomes problematic and more tedious when unusual objects come into play. For example, if you have to set the scene for a cake and a food processor at the same time. Then it often takes a little time until the cake, the machine and I agree!

MPB: Your pictures look very natural, taken only in daylight. Do you edit your pictures afterwards?

MK: Around 99% of the time, I work with daylight—thanks to large windows and some reflectors, this is usually a great starting point. Still, I edit almost all of my images to adjust brightness and correct colours. Sometimes a crumb or two has to be removed. I edit my images mainly with Adobe Photoshop and the Nik Collection for Photoshop. This has proven to be the easiest photo editing option over the years.

MPB: What advice would you give to food photography beginners?

MK: First, I would recommend getting a feel for food styling and settings. If the subject you want to photograph doesn't look good, then the photo of it won't look good either. Then definitely get smart about image composition and lighting. The easiest way to do that is to look at a lot of food magazines to see how other photographers work—and then, eventually, get familiar with all the equipment.

MPB: You also wrote a book Bake in the USA - My Baking Book and won the Food Blog Award in 2016, how did that come about? And why exactly is this book with this title?

MK: For several years, I had been publishing recipes on my blog. Then a publisher approached me, with a request for a baking book. At the time, publishers had just rediscovered food bloggers with larger internet followings as content creators with integrated clientele. The topic and the title came up during the collaboration with the publisher, based on the story of how I came to my blog via a longer stay in the USA. The title Bake in the USA was a play on words, with regard to the blog name *Bake to the Roots—*in turn, a play on ‘back to the roots’.

Thanks, Marc.