Cannes Creator Beach
Creator Beach at Cannes Lions 2026 split into two spaces (the Showcase at the entrance, and Adobe HQ tucked further in near the bar and networking area), and I was responsible for developing the look and feel of both, then directing the flagship activation at the Showcase itself. Landing on that final look took real work: a lot of back and forth with executives and Identity, the London agency serving as Cannes' sitewide booth and property builder, before we settled on a direction that felt distinctly Adobe without repeating what we'd done the year before, across a booth structure, a shoot studio, a glam and podcast setup, and a networking lounge.
The Showcase's centerpiece was the Firefly Camera, an idea Adobe Technical Producer Serge Jespers originated. My team took that concept and hyped it up, making it site-specific for Cannes: a guest steps up to an iPad kiosk, Firefly applies a style and drops them into a Cannes-specific environment, and the resulting image feeds a live repository projected onto the Majestic Hotel's screens down the Croisette, while a printed sticker sends people off with something physical to keep.
Making that work meant solving the prompts, and that's where most of my time went. Early on, to solve the actual problem of getting location prompts to hold up (consistent, on-brand, site-specific), I built an Image Essence Agent myself: a tool that reads the underlying craft of a reference image (its lighting, color, camera language, mood) and turns it into a Firefly-ready description. Kendall Plant and Angela Fischer and I used it to bring the Firefly Camera's prompts to life, and it became how we developed prompts across the whole Showcase; other teams picked it up too, using it for the separate Boutique activation. Building a working AI tool myself, end to end, is one of the wins I'm proudest of from Cannes this year.
Creator Beach came together as a fully built, print-ready activation for the 2026 festival: two distinct spaces under one Adobe identity, and a Showcase experience genuinely built for Cannes rather than dropped into it.
Credits
John Caponi / Senior Creative Director / Developed the look and feel for both Creator Beach spaces; creative direction on the Showcase activation; built the Image Essence Agent
Michael Jarrott / Adobe Creative Director / Cannes expression and strategy lead
Serge Jespers / Adobe Technical Producer / Created the original Firefly Camera activation concept
Kendall Plant / Creative Director / Firefly Camera prompt development
Angela Fischer / Sr CD / Firefly Camera prompt development
Mandy Tripp / Program Management
Angela Weidmann / Program Management
Identity / Agency / Sitewide booth and property builder, Cannes Lions 2026
Image Essence
Created in Claude by John Caponi
Created in Claude by John Caponi
Every great image has invisible craft behind it: the way light wraps a subject, the tension in a color palette, the intimacy of a focal length. When creatives try to recreate that quality in AI-generated imagery, they're left guessing at words to describe something they can only feel. The result: technically correct images that lack soul.
Image Essence doesn't copy styles. It reads the craft.
Upload any reference image and the tool surfaces the underlying decisions that make it work: lighting direction, rendering approach, color relationships, camera language, mood. The building blocks any skilled photographer, director or creator would reach for, now available to anyone. No guesswork.
How It Works
• Upload a reference image
• Choose a mode: Extract a reusable essence, apply it to a new location, or build a complete description with subject and detail
• Generate: Get a technically precise, Firefly-ready image description
• Refine: Iterate with quick actions or custom instructions, with full version history