We Power the Magic: Photography Without a Camera for Trench Group with Agenzia Bodoni
After twenty five years behind the camera, I have learned that a photograph is resolved long before the shutter is released. It is defined by the clarity of an idea, the intention behind the light, the choice of a point of view. My recent work with Agenzia Bodoni for Trench Group raised a simple question: what remains of the photographer's craft when the camera itself is no longer part of the process?
The answer was clear: everything that matters.
An Idea Before a Technology
Trench Group designs and manufactures components for high voltage power infrastructure. These are technical, essential objects, largely invisible in everyday life. Yet they make possible what we take for granted: a light switched on, a tram departing on time, a warm home at night.
This is the foundation of the concept developed by Bodoni, We Power the Magic: capturing the quiet magic of ordinary moments and connecting it to the reliability of those who power them. The agency's strategic direction defined the brand positioning and the language of the campaign. My role was to translate that vision into images.
A Fully Generative Campaign
The campaign comprises a series of subjects: scenes of daily life, professionals in the field, and an iconic visual dedicated to the city of Berlin. In the Berlin subject, the columns of the Brandenburg Gate become high voltage components. None of them was photographed. Each image was built through generative AI, refined with traditional post production and compositing.
This is the aspect I find most significant. If anything, AI made the photographic eye more necessary. Every decision I would take on a physical set still had to be taken, only through different means.
Light. Warm and intimate in the domestic scenes, theatrical and nocturnal in the monumental subject. Designed with the same intent as on set, never left to the model.
Casting. Credible faces, restrained expressions, no artificial perfection. This is precisely where an image either moves the viewer or reads as a rendering.
Coherence. A campaign needs a visual system in which every subject speaks the same language.
From File to Public Space
The visuals were created for an Out of Home campaign at Berlin Brandenburg Airport, in the arrivals exit area, with installations reaching 8.7 metres in width. A format that forgives nothing. Dedicated mastering and upscaling were essential to deliver print quality consistent with high end photography, down to the finest detail.
Seeing the installation crew mount the prints was the moment the project became physical. Images that were never photographed, now lit and printed at architectural scale, seen by thousands of travellers every day.
Watch the installation:
A Question of Direction
This project reinforces a conviction I have held for some time: artificial intelligence is a technical medium in service of an idea. On its own, it produces images. Guided by strategic vision and photographic expertise, it produces communication.
The division of roles was clear and highly collaborative. Bodoni led the creative direction, defining the concept, visual language and overall aesthetic framework of the project. My role was to interpret and translate that direction into images, bringing to the process the method, visual sensitivity and rigour developed over years of photography and production, while exploring the possibilities offered by generative tools.
The full project: lucapatrone.com/trench-group
My thanks to Agenzia Bodoni for their trust and vision.
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