Interviews
17 July 2025
Guillaume is the image wizard of La Grande Boutique. Having worked in computer graphics for a long time, he developed a passion for photography about twenty years ago. He’s been with LGB since its beginnings on the web, so all the beautiful images you’ve seen on the site are thanks to him. Also responsible for what are called “packshots” (views of products neatly laid flat on a neutral background), he’s also responsible for them.
In a word, he’s the artistic director of the online store. A vision, a sense of aesthetics, and detail that he brings to each of his shots. And like every artist, Guillaume evolves with the times. He’s the one behind the very first visual created with AI for La Grande Boutique.
For La Grande Boutique’s customers, he deciphers this fascinating work and analyzes the fascinating transformation that artificial intelligence represents in his work.
I would say it’s not desire but rather fear!! (laughs) Everyone tells us not to worry, but it worries me! Rather than letting it overwhelm me, I told myself that I needed to train myself. That’s what I did. I looked at how image creation works; it’s extremely technical. I’ve been working on it every day for about 5-6 months. I’d say my working time has tripled, in research time, etc. I was lucky, I found someone to train me. Personally, I’ve been trying to produce photos worked with artificial intelligence for a while now. Regarding this campaign, there haven’t really been any orders from LGB. It just happened that way.
What you need to know about AI is that image models are trained from existing images. What interested me was to create an original model, a face that the AI created for me. I succeeded, the girl in the photo doesn’t exist! In fact, nothing exists except the t-shirt. And regarding the process, the work is the same as for photography. You have a basic idea, and you develop your project around it. Afterwards, it’s obvious that I would never have had this result in photography…
Since I’m the one shooting the packshots, I know them all by heart! I selected a very summery product, I knew it would work with the very “beach” universe I had in mind.
As I was saying, I quickly felt that my job was in danger with AI. Now, software is within everyone’s reach, so I absolutely have to train myself to jump on this bandwagon. At first, it could take me 2 weeks to get 2-3 views, now it takes me 1 week. I’m improving!
I use a software called ComfyUI. There are several different AI models, it’s very configurable, very customizable. You can work on a visual endlessly… It’s very technical.
The photo we call “worn packshot” will disappear, I think. Today, we can ask an AI to pose while wearing a certain item of clothing, etc. This is a huge saving in time and money for brands. It will also shake up the entire chain of professions related to the image, whether it be casting, models, photographers, makeup artists, etc. For packshots, maybe it will take longer… because you have to stitch the clothes (Editor’s note: literally put spikes on the clothes to keep them flat before photographing them), but maybe it will come because AI is evolving very, very quickly. My job is not going to disappear, it will evolve. The change will be very fast, dazzling. We will have to acclimatize quickly!