01 since 2018
BBK
Where art is not only shown but defended.
Studio · Roman Thomas · Celle
Three
worlds,
one eye.
I work in three worlds. In photography, in graphic design, and in art. The rooms look different, but I approach them with the same eye. An eye that pays attention to structures, to light, to what lies between things.
Some clients come for one field and only later notice that the others are working alongside. A brand I design has a visual concept. A space I photograph has a composition. An edition made in the studio has a stance.
Everything interlocks, because it all comes from the same workshop.
One workshop. Three rooms.
The three worlds
01
Photography Spaces, work, people.
02
Design Few things, done precisely.
03
Art Heimat, city, chance, intention.
Studio · 01 · Vita
Vita.
Roman Thomas, born in Celle in 1975, is a photographer, designer, and artist. Trained as a cabinetmaker, freelance since 1999. Vitra Group since 2007, iF Design since 2008. Member of the BV/AF, AGD, BBK, and VG Bild-Kunst.
I was born in Celle in 1975. My father was a photographer, that is the first background. But before anything else came wood: three years of cabinetmaking, furniture building, measurement and tools. The craft never went away.
Then the FOS Gestaltung, a secondary school for design. It gave me the entrance qualification for a university of applied sciences, and studying there would have been the next step. Instead, in 1997 I went to New Mexico for a season. Desert, light, silence. The first photographs of my own that did not come from my father’s studio but from my own way of seeing.
I have been working freelance since 1999. Photography and graphic design side by side from the start, never separated. Since 2007 I have photographed for the Vitra Group, and a year later the iF International Forum Design followed. Ever since, I have accompanied the jury and the work of iF with my camera.
Art runs in parallel. First exhibitions in 2010, then Hidden Places, then Heimat, then the AI-based works. In 2011 the design prize from the Rat für Formgebung. In 2018 I joined the BBK, in 2022 the Bundesverband Architekturfotografie.
Three worlds, one eye. What is made in the studio helps the commissioned work. What is made on commission sharpens the eye for the studio.
Studio · 02 · Workshop
Workshop.
I work with AI not as an effect but as a tool. Midjourney and ComfyUI for developing images, Higgsfield and Runway for motion, Claude and ChatGPT for text, Photoshop and Firefly for the finishing work. Method, not magic.
Workshop means: this is a place for working, not for staging. What does not work gets thrown out. What remains becomes the work.
Some of the tools in this workshop are decades old, some only a few years. I have known Hasselblad and Photoshop since the nineties. I have worked with AI since 2022, when I opened Midjourney for the first time. Today both kinds of tools sit next to each other on the same table.
What I do with AI does not replace photography. It adds rooms I could not open any other way. Hidden Places is photography. The Heimat series is photography with motion. The AI works are a third thing, a material I am only just discovering.
AI is not a special case here but a steady partner in all three fields: in photography, in design, and in the free work.
No effects, a method. What the tool can do does not decide the work. I do.
Studio · 03 · Memberships
Memberships.
Roman Thomas is a member of the BBK (chair of the Celle chapter, board member in Lower Saxony), VG Bild-Kunst, the BV/AF (since 2022), and the AGD (since 2006).
Memberships say little about pictures and a lot about stance. I am organized in four associations because my work touches three worlds, and each of these worlds speaks its own language.
In three of them I am a member. In one of them I work.
02 Member
VG Bild-Kunst
Copyright and royalties for visual works.
03 since 2022
BV/AF
Standards and visibility for architectural photography.
04 since 2006
AGD
Fees, contracts, and rights of freelance designers.
01 BBK since 2018
Bundesverband Bildender Künstlerinnen und Künstler
In the BBK Celle I am the chair, and in the Lower Saxony state association I serve on the board. Here I am not just a member. Here I work.
bbk-bundesverband.de 02 VG Bild-Kunst Member
Verwertungsgesellschaft Bild-Kunst
The collecting society for visual works in Germany. It administers copyrights and royalties for photography, design, and art. Without it there would be no regulated secondary use.
bildkunst.de 03 BV/AF since 2022
Bundesverband Architekturfotografie
Architectural photography is a craft of its own: geometry, light, measurement, time. The BV/AF organizes standards, fees, and visibility for this discipline in Germany.
bvaf.de 04 AGD since 2006
Allianz deutscher Designer
My oldest association. This is where fees, contracts, and rights are negotiated. Valuable when a briefing turns into a dispute.
agd.deAnchor points protect the work. They are not marketing, they are structural.