The Approach
This was an exploration into how AI could expand the possibilities of a highly controlled studio photoshoot, using custom plastic materials and props that would often be complex, time-consuming, or costly to fabricate traditionally. The result is Fake Plastic Love—a series exploring the tension between luxury and artificiality, inspired by Radiohead’s meditation on things that “look like the real thing.” Through AI, an imagined world emerges where plastic warps around the objects we desire.
The Story
Luxury takes on a synthetic edge as sculptural handbags, shoes, jewelry, accessories, and beauty emerge from melting, molded, crinkled, crushed, and inflated plastics. Glossy surfaces mimic something real while warped forms blur the line between beauty and fabrication. The materials become part of the compositions rather than simply props, wrapping, distorting, and transforming around each product to create a playful tension between polished desire and manufactured imperfection.
The Execution
The visual direction was driven by sculptural form, proportion, and color, with a saturated palette of corals, reds, burgundies, and indigos. Products were selected to emphasize their shapes and details, while the surrounding plastics introduced unexpected scale, texture, and movement. Together, the elements create a graphic, tactile world that feels both luxurious and deliberately artificial.
The images evolved through an iterative process using ChatGPT, Midjourney, Flora, and Firefly. ChatGPT helped establish product-specific direction and initial concepts, while Midjourney and Flora explored composition and material interaction through product photography and mood-board imagery. Photoshop and Firefly brought the images to their final form through compositing, retouching, and artifact cleanup, with each image refined to preserve the integrity and details of the original products.
