Did you have any help with it?

I did work with one great art director, Philippe Taroux. He couldn't help me with any of the 3D stuff, but supported me to a great amount with the research. During the project he came up with precise ideas how he wanted the octopus to look, but was always open minded for any of my ideas. Actually he bought an octopus before me and shot a lot of the research images. Anyway, all the forums out there were an important support for me. Some problems I ran into couldn't have been solved without the kind knowledge of some LightWaver who encountered the same dilemma before, but found the solution.

Tell me why you made cheese pictures?

I was asked to contribute some images to an issue of BIG magazine. As this issue would be about Paris, the art director kindly asked me to shoot French cheese. Although it tastes delicious, its looks vary between strange and disgusting. So I did my research and selected a small range of different French cheese.

Why is the cheese in 3D, wouldn't it have been easier to just buy some real cheese and photograph it?

As I shot the backgrounds on location, it would have been a bit tricky to prepare the cheese right on your set. The weather was still pretty hot and cheese tends to melt or sweats if it is to warm. It might have been possible. But as I did another series of tea bags before for BIG magazine, I thought it's a nice idea to work again in the same way. Also I wanted to enhance my texturing skills.

Tell me about the tea bags?

Same magazine as the cheese, different subject and art director. In the "This England" issue of BIG the art director handed out a long list of English sayings to all the contributors. Somehow I picked "not my cup of tea" and started to find nice ideas. At one point the art director asked me to do a series on tea bags like I did before with other subjects. I tried to depict different kinds of shapes but unfortunately couldn't find enough different approaches to this kind of packaging design. Then the art director spoke about contrasting a fresh tea bag with a used one. So I tried to carry this idea even further. The grains of tea in the new bag always shape the coastline around a significant English harbour, while the contrasting bag depicts a former English colony with a great tea tradition (Apart from Boston and its famous tea "party").

Are they for a different work than the coffee cups?

Yes, they were for a German magazine. Subject to this story was coffee-ground reading. Predicting the next year's business in a rather peculiar way. Although all the articles already existed, I did have a lot of freedom to find appropriate ways to translate the subjects into adequate images. As the picture editor liked my style of photography, there has been a good foundation to propose image ideas on you own.

What are the fat animals for (the jockey, horse and giraffe)?

The jockey and giraffe were both produced for Zeiss binoculars and published in France. The giraffe image has a background image that was shot by Ebo Fraterman. The horse image was entirely created by me.

Do you work in realms other than print?

Some of my photographs have been part of museum exhibitions, others managed to find their way into private collections. But in general all my photographs get printed in one or the other publication. Animation is still an unfamiliar territory for me, but I'd love to take this step sooner or later. Especially since my latest character is crying out to be animated.

Thanks for chatting to us Thomas and we look forward to seeing your future works!