Thomas Voland — photography blog
People photography, professional retouching, equipment and technology from years of hands-on experience.
I recently did tests with Sophie from England, so today, while briefly discussing NikCollection 6, you will see her photos. The agency that represents her in Thailand is quite specific because it specializes in models with partially Asian facial features, while other agencies in Bangkok also have plenty of typically white models. Unlike many “normal” […]
Lily is completely new to modeling, so the tests I shot with her last week are the first photos in her book. Apart from her, every other person the modeling agencies wanted to send me over the past few days was Asian. Since my previous two shoots were with a half-Thai and a half-Chinese model, this time I chose someone with a completely different look. Soon […]
Alani looks Asian in most photos, which is no surprise because she’s half Thai (and half Australian). In my photos, however, her Thai side is much less apparent than usual. I also made a short behind-the-scenes video from this shoot—you’ll find it at the end of the post. As with all my tests, the makeup was […]
Last week, Tara Bancroft came to me for a photoshoot – a mix of China and Switzerland, although she spent most of her life in the UK. Such models often do very well professionally because they look like Asians, but with lighter skin and taller height, which is highly sought in Asia. In the past, […]
Until a few days ago, everything in Bangkok was still operating as I recently described in the article “Life in Thailand during the pandemic.” The biggest changes since then were the automatic extension of our visas until the end of July and a curfew from 10:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. In any case, the restrictions here were never as severe as in Poland […]
This will be a short post, as I am including a video at the end that shows the course of the photo session. So I’ll focus on what you can’t see. Last summer, I wrote on my blog: “two unique models from Belarus caught my eye (…) during my trip, their stay in Thailand was […]
I have no doubt that Lightroom CC will eventually replace the Classic version completely. Apart from saving Adobe the cost of developing two “identical” programs, LR CC is simply much better optimized because it was written relatively recently with current-generation hardware in mind, while LR Classic is a lumbering beast with new code constantly bolted onto it […]
Today in the photos, you will see Lera, who is represented by Apple Models during her contract in Thailand. I did some tests with her on Tuesday afternoon, but I won’t focus on them today. I think I mentioned recently that I am slowly starting to think about changing my studio lamps, so I did […]
In this post, I wanted to take the opportunity to talk a little about lighting stands, but first a brief introduction. In June, two unique models from Belarus caught my eye. They were on contracts with A1 Models in Bangkok. Unfortunately, due to my trip to Europe, I had too much things to do, to […]
Maria came to me for a photoshoot. I met her a long time ago during some exhibition, and Damian Black mentioned her to me even earlier. Damian is a makeup artist who does makeup on models for me about once a year. So, we were supposed to take photos with Maria a long time ago, […]
Sometimes I take very simple outdoor photos—without lights or any preparation. That was the case with this shoot too—a styling and a trip to a park. In this case, a park in Bangkok. Aleks posed for me; she usually spends several months a year in Thailand and lives mainly in Singapore the rest of the time. That has changed recently, but […]
I’ve been using my beloved, super cheap YongNuo YN-560IV lamps lately. It may not be anything unusual, as I use them all the time, but this time they weren’t a supplement to studio lamps, but the only source of light. I’ve been doing this for the past few months on other shoots as well, so […]
How did I manage to live in Bangkok for two and a half years before photographing my first Thai model? I have no idea. One thing is certain, and I’ve mentioned it many times before: there are no Asian models in Asia… I mean, there are, but they make up only a fraction of the industry. In Thailand, most models are Brazilian. There are also many Russian, Ukrainian, and generally […]
I had taken a long break from photography. My last shoot was a year earlier, and my last one in Bangkok was even longer ago, at the very beginning of 2014. This city really makes you lazy... The break caused a few problems. Ten minutes before the shoot, for example, it turned out that the black reflector I use as a background for beauty photos was too creased to use. Instead […]
Another shoot done in Poland. I completed quite a few over the previous several days, mostly with Klaudia Danch, who appears on this site constantly anyway. Karolina Zientek was there as the makeup artist, with Mateusz “Pro” Prociak assisting, so the whole team was together again. This was another shoot using Jinbei MSN II lights, and […]
As some of you probably already know, I flew to Poland a month earlier than planned and decided to spend some of that time on photo shoots. For them, I chose studio lights I hadn't had a chance to use before: the Jinbei MSN II. They're easy on the wallet, but they also have certain […]
In a real studio, you’ll never face the problem of insufficient space, but you can often find yourself in pseudo-studios, which are too small or too low. Moreover, a photo shoot is sometimes taken with the use of a studio backdrop positioned in a flat (that’s my case). I’ve encountered the latter problem, i.e. insufficient […]
Ayaka was the first model I photographed while in Asia. She comes from Tokyo and lives there, but she is represented by the Apple Model Management agency based in Bangkok. Joy, however, was the last person I took photos of before my February trip to Poland. The session with her, although planned, ended up being quite spontaneous, like - "well [...]
This is not the first shoot I did in Bangkok, but I am going to describe it first anyway. In the backwater where I spent most of my life, I never once ran into a model. Unless I had arranged to meet her beforehand. On the other side of the world, it happened within my first few days. What is more, she was from… Poland. It started with a grandfather asking […]
The Extravagant Makeup Championship took place a year ago. At the time, I photographed the winning makeup created by Karolina Zientek. That shoot happened before the championship; this year, ahead of the next edition of the competition, we did the same.
Here is a short workshop post, because recently I had been taking photos only during training sessions. I was planning a series of shoots for late autumn, though, and plenty of new material would appear then. The workshop described this time took place in Warsaw in July. Another would happen the next day, but it would also be the last one in the capital. Unfortunately, no places remained, so please don’t write about […]
I do my photoshoots using flash exclusively. When I organize an outdoor shoot, I switch off the sun and make my own with lights. This time, even though I had a 600 and 1200 Ws outdoor studio kit, I decided to shoot using available light only. I had taken very few photos that year and decided it was time to change that. I knew […]
As almost everyone probably knows by now, my favorite kind of light is the type you can get from a 70 cm beauty dish, most often with a honeycomb grid attached. You will find plenty of photos I took with this modifier. I created almost my entire portfolio with it. Last year, I had a chance to do a shoot with a Fomei dish of a much smaller diameter, 43 cm, which […]
I had already done two shoots based on the Tomb Raider game and film, shown my take on Snow White, and created a cosplay inspired by The Vampire Diaries. Now it was time for photos inspired by The Walking Dead. I had been planning this shoot for a very long time, but it finally happened only this year. Karolina Zientek handled the makeup, while Aga from Le’Prestige did the hair. […]
Some time ago, I decided I'd had enough of laboriously setting up my equipment for every shoot. I planned to go back to speedlights and put together the most mobile kit possible, but that would come later. The first step was to replace my standard modifiers with quick-setup models, which had been growing more popular for about two years. I also planned to replace the bag I used for carrying […]
Today is the last post about the photos taken during the shoot at the Onyx club. It covers beauty photography and, for a change, something more fashion-oriented, although done very much in a hurry. The star is Klaudia Danch, who keeps appearing in my shoots. Karolina Zientek did the makeup, and Aga from the Le'Prestige salon did the hair. The usual team.
In July 2011, I didn’t do photo shoots very often, and certainly organized them less frequently than I do now. I didn’t do beauty photography at all, except for one exception done as a test (which wasn’t very successful, by the way…). At that time, I realized that to take such photos, I needed a […]
I recently described a beauty shoot done at the Onyx music club. That day, however, I photographed not only Aleksandra Cogiel but two other girls as well. I also had the opportunity to see how the Powerlux VE series flashes performed (I had already written about the VT series). One of the girls was Ola Lech, whom I had also photographed before (in […]
Two different shoots, different crews, different models, but a similar idea: photos with rim lighting that’s much more visible than usual. A rim light sits behind the model and lights her in a way that “outlines” her. Normally, with the key light in front, the face would be brighter in the center and darker around the edges. Rim lighting can […]
Brick is a three-level club in Tarnowskie Góry, Poland, situated at Krakowska street. It’s an avenue leading to the market square, with many shops, banks and the like: simply a city center, though very small in comparison to other towns. The bottom level of Brick has a dance floor for parties, at the ground floor […]
Once again, Lara Croft in my version. The first photos with Lara (you can find a description of the photo session here) caused quite a stir – thanks to them, I started paying attention that someday I would be able to take good pictures and finally found the courage to arrange photo shoots with aspiring […]
I photographed Idalia Zbrzeźniak of Eastern Models in the second half of 2011 and again at the very end of 2012. The first time we shot full-length images; most recently we did only beauty. After the second shoot, I realized how much had changed in such a short time. Previously, I had no experience with beauty photography. I also didn’t have […]
This time, something between fashion and beauty. I did this shoot a few days ago, mainly using accessories from Powerlux. They included VT-series lights, the simplest, lightest and, just as importantly, cheapest models. In terms of price, Powerlux VT lights are comparable to Quantuum PT lights. I also used other lights, but today's post will focus on […]
In 2010 I was busy preparing a photo report (yes, a photo report – one has to start somehow…) at an automotive industry trade fair. At one stall they mistook me for a professional photographer famous in the motorcycling circles, who belonged to the same editorial staff as I did. After a while, the stall’s […]
Last Saturday, November 24, the 11th National Extravagant Makeup Championship took place. The theme was "Summer Time." Of course, I wasn't the one competing. It was the makeup artist I work with on almost every shoot, Karolina Zientek. She won, though I doubt that surprised anyone. We did a beauty and fashion shoot to capture the championship-winning styling, subtitled […]
The shoot with Aleksandra took place a month ago and was fairly spontaneous, like most of my shoots. While browsing maxmodels, I came across her profile and knew right away that "this was it." It's rare for me to find anyone interesting there, especially someone local. She's short, but she's only 14, so there's plenty of time to […]
My country hosted a competition for make-up artists, organized by Dior and blogmakijaz.pl website. Its prizes included Dior cosmetics as well as training with Alex Chatti (Dior’s chief make-up artist) and Julie Bodrier (Sephora’s chief make-up creator). Karolina Zientek, a make-up artist cooperating with me on nearly every beauty shot in my portfolio, concluded that […]
I very often use a beauty dish as the key light, so I’ve decided to devote this post to it and thus give people unfamiliar with the topic a chance to learn what it is. It’s usually true that the softer the light, the better. Well, perhaps I am generalizing too much, but such is […]
I have always liked movies related to vampires. Some of them are better than others, but I guess I’ve seen most of them. I definitely consider “The Vampire Diaries” one of the best. As I know a girl that looks VERY similar to the main character of the series, I immediately thought about a photo […]
Some time ago two film versions of the popular fairy tale “Snow White” were shown in cinemas. One was an embarrassing comedy, while the other one – something much darker and appearing quite interesting. Karolina Zientek, my favorite make-up artist, concluded that it would be a good idea to take some photos of a girl […]
Mac or PC – which computer is better for photo editing and why? Edition 2024 Over the years, a huge number of computer configurations have gone through this article. I suggested Macs due to their easy color management in macOS and great screens in MacBooks. well-functioning scaling, even if it is different on multiple monitors […]
This blog post is about Retouch4me, an artificial intelligence used for retouching photos both in Photoshop and as standalone applications. This is an unusual A.I because it has absolutely no competition – it specializes in photo retouching and there is no other tool like this (not on this level – not even close). One mouse […]
If you have low-resolution, blurry, and/or noisy photos, it is very possible that Topaz Photo AI is a tool for you. We are talking about both amateur and professional photoshoots. The subject matter is also very broad – it works with photos of people, nature, macro, etc. Update: April 2023. I decided to check if […]
For a long time, I had been thinking about a desk with electric height adjustment, the kind that lets you alternate between sitting and standing while working. Friends had praised using a computer this way for years, and it is obviously worthwhile for health reasons. But I was concerned about whether retouching photos like this would be comfortable. Working on a pen tablet […]
Finally, the time has come when it is easy to illuminate your computer workstation for retouching, graphic design, or video editing. In the past, there were many complications when people wanted to do it right. In the past almost everyone used fluorescent bulbs because other light sources had too many drawbacks for such use: incorrect […]
Do you use gloves for retouching? Almost nobody does. In fact, few people even know they exist. Whenever my hand was visible during webinars, people often asked whether something had happened to it, "what is that strange thing on your hand?", and "how much does it cost?" I used to review gloves all the […]
In this article, I'll try to cover all the most important settings that affect how fast Photoshop runs and how pleasant it is to use, without unnecessary stuttering, the brush lagging behind the cursor, and so on. I'll cover the points I discussed more than a year ago in a video about performance (it's in the Webinar Archive), plus […]
I've already written a lot about how to light a retouching workstation. Today I'm returning to the subject from a slightly different, highly subjective angle: using LEDs as room lighting, or more specifically, describing a particular lamp with good LEDs and adjustable brightness and color temperature. Even now, in my computer room […]
No matter what year it is, information about what DPI to set for photos published on the internet is still being repeated. “Just use 72” is probably the most common opinion. Of course, 72 is enough. Just like any other value, even 1. If it’s 10,000, it won’t change anything – the photo will be […]
By now, almost everyone has probably heard that Nik Collection, a set of plugins for Photoshop, Lightroom, and other applications, is now available for free. It used to cost several thousand zlotys, and after Google acquired the company the price dropped to around 500 PLN. Now the entire collection is free to download, while anyone who bought it in 2016 will receive a refund. I mentioned […]
Dodge & burn is one part of retouching you simply have to know if you want to edit photos of people. I don't necessarily mean strictly commercial photography with models. Dodge & burn can be useful even in portrait work, just on a smaller scale. Unlike other techniques, it preserves the skin's texture completely, though that's not its only […]
It finally had to happen—the first post on my blog that is a video (more specifically, a screencast, meaning a recording of what is happening on the computer screen). Last week I announced on my fan page that you could send me your photos, and I would retouch selected ones and record a speed-retouching video—one that shows the editing process at a highly […]
Color management is fundamental to digital photography, but knowledge of the subject is surprisingly poor. Unfortunately, professional photographers, and even people who call themselves retouchers, often have no idea which color spaces they are working in or what the consequences are. There will be no technical babble in my post because I probably would not understand half of […]
Natural skin color is a constant headache for many people. Different cameras reproduce colors differently. Nikon, for example, has been labeled as producing yellow images, while Canon has been labeled as producing red ones. People also say Canon's colors are much better and more natural. If you shoot JPG, this may actually matter. But if you read my website, […]
I have a mouse, keyboard, speakers, and various devices such as monitors connected to my PC. However, I also wanted to have a Mac and switch between computers quickly so that most of the devices would also “jump” to the one I am currently using. For several months now, I have been using a KVM […]
Table of Table of Contents: Page 1: Introduction CRT and LCD – were they ever better? Characteristics of photo-editing monitors Is it worth investing in a good monitor? Monitor for a photographer Advantages of 4K/UHD monitors for photography How can manufacturers "cheat"? Calibration Graphics Card Page 2: List of Monitors for Photography – HD […]
Taking cool photos of people (and not only) often requires the use of tripod-mounted lamps. For my first lighting set (3 lamps, stands, RF controllers, etc.), I spent a total of around 250 USD and described it in an article many years ago. It was an incredibly low price for such possibilities (one good Nikon/Canon […]
Many things can give you a serious boost while learning photography, and some of them can be bought. It will probably be something different for everyone and largely depends on what you photograph. I made a list of the things that mattered VERY much to me. I only mention equipment here, but a separate post about […]
Tethering, or simply previewing photos during a shoot just moments after pressing the shutter, is a huge convenience that I use regularly. It makes it much easier to judge whether everything in the photo is right. The photographer, makeup artist, assistant, and the rest of the crew all get an easy look at every shot. I probably don't need to explain how much this improves the chances of catching […]
For several years I shot with a Nikon D700. It was great, but eventually the time came to replace it. Last year I bought a Nikon D810; so far I had only mentioned it briefly while describing my gear. It is high time I wrote something more and posted some of the photos I took with it. Alongside the retouched photographs (click a thumbnail to load the […]
I've written a lot on this blog about the photography equipment I use, but almost always about lights, modifiers, and how I position them on set. Lighting has a huge effect on the final image. I certainly wouldn't say the same about the camera, at least for work published online. That's why I've always avoided writing at length about my […]
UHD/4K monitors are the future, and partly the present already. They offer a much sharper image that looks far more like prints than what we'd been used to. It's no surprise that photographers in particular want them on their desks. Top-of-the-line models made specifically for photography are already available, but their prices are fairly overwhelming. Fortunately, more […]
Since I started this website, I've received plenty of questions about equipping a first studio: which lights, modifiers, lens, and so on. I decided to write about what helps me when taking photographs and what everyone should have in a small studio. This will be highly subjective, but if you're interested in the same particular area of photography as I am, […]
If you want to photograph people, sooner or later you will need to start using lights. I do not mean one built into the camera or mounted on it. Today I am covering equipment, specifically strobing: photographing with speedlights placed around the set rather than on the camera's hot shoe. My lighting kit […]
I've been covering a lot of artificial intelligence related to photography lately. First, I showed how to use it to speed up retouching without the result looking like embarrassing Photoshop filters—instead, it looks like work done by a retoucher. Then I reported on my tests of DALL-E 2, the most advanced A.I. for creating art—graphics, images, “photos,” and so on. Today, however, I have two, or even […]
How does it feel to be one of the first people in the world to have access to tests of the most advanced artificial intelligence capable of creating art? Absolutely wonderful :). If you had asked me three years ago when we would be able to talk relatively freely with A.I; or when it would […]
It’s been over a decade since I moved to Thailand and while I’ve showcased photos of people from various nationalities on the blog, there haven’t been many Thais. I’ve written several times that Thai modeling agencies tend to have people from other countries, and if you do come across Thais, they don’t have the distinctive […]
Is it worth buying photography and computer equipment in Thailand? Why does every Thai person keep the virtual Home button enabled on their iPhone screen, and why are shopping malls so popular in this country? I wrote about all of this for iMagazine, and the article has recently become available simply by visiting their website.
This post was written in February 2014, but I later decided to give it a proper update (last updated: April 24, 2021). I also wrote a follow-up to this article that covers other subjects. If you're more interested in everything else than the costs and other very basic information, especially what it's like to live in Thailand longer term, it's better to start with another post: Bangkok after 3 […]