Tracing Lines emerged while reviewing the contact sheets of a photographic campaign produced for a watchmaking house. Beyond the images selected for the campaign, another sequence slowly appeared. A series connected by recurring visual traces — lines drawn by light, landscape and material.
The project was developed across several locations, from the shores of Lake Neuchâtel to the coastal landscapes of southern Europe. These environments echo the philosophy that has long guided the work of the brand’s founder, Michel Parmigiani, who has often described nature as a fundamental source of inspiration for the proportions and harmony of his timepieces. Rather than isolating the watch from its surroundings, the compositions allow natural forms to participate in the image. Reflections on water, textures of stone and shifting horizons extending the geometry of the object.
Presented as a parallel photographic sequence, Tracing Lines functions as a kind of director’s cut of the project. Removed from the logic of the campaign, the images reveal another layer of the work: a quiet dialogue between object, landscape and light, where the lines of nature and the lines of watchmaking briefly align.