This editorial was a long-held ambition, an experiment that ultimately exceeded its own premise. During the pandemic, I began working at home with AI-generated imagery, using Midjourney as a tool to explore lighting, composition, and spatial logic. These images were never intended as final works, but as references, frameworks onto which real photography, clothing, gesture, and narrative could later be grafted.

When restrictions finally lifted, this project was the first concept I was determined to realize physically. Each image began as an AI mock-up defining pose, light, and environment. From there, I translated those references into my lighting software, meticulously reconstructing each scene’s illumination and composition. The environments were then regenerated as blank templates, stages awaiting the presence of a real human subject.

On set, every frame was executed with exacting precision. Distances, angles, and light values were measured and matched to the digital previsualization. It was a radically different way of working, methodical, architectural, and surprisingly playful. What made the experience especially satisfying was shooting the entire series on a Leica, a brand grounded in heritage, restraint, and photographic authenticity, while embedding those images within fabricated worlds.

That tension, between the authentic and the artificial, proved catalytic. The process dissolved my interest in debating the merits or threats of AI as a concept. Instead, it sharpened my focus on authorship, intention, and outcome. What ultimately mattered was not how the images were made, but what they made possible