William Ropp (1960, Nancy,
France) is a contemporary photographer and photo-artist, best known for his
series of portraits. Lives and works in France.
William Ropp is often
called not just a photographer but a photo-artist, and his style of photography
is spoken of as unique, inimitable, and recognizable. For the impression they
produce, his works are compared to those by painters: individuals depicted in
them are as if looking at the viewer – not vice versa. Ropp is known as the
Shadow Sculptor. Portraits by him — it is his work with the human body and
portrait photography he is famous for — are indeed so dimensional and
expressive that they look like they are sculpted from shadow and light. William
Ropp began his career in the theatre three decades ago. There is something
theatrical about his pictures today as well: each of them is like a speechless
monologue by the character depicted in it, a play with one actor, which is
encased into one instant caught by the photographer.
William Ropp made his first
series of black-and-white photographs in 1988: those were images of human
figures reflected in distorting mirrors. Ropp continued working with the human
body in the studio, experimenting with lighting and photographic technology. In
the early 90’s, he found the style that would make him famous. Ropp would
plunge figures of models, which, as it is, perplexed the viewer with the
complexity of their intricate postures, into darkness and “paint” their body
outlines with a bright beam of light. He would increase the exposure time to 10
minutes to make the image a bit blurred but would focus one’s attention on the
main thing: the eyes, the facial expression, the shoulder line, or the arm’s
expressive curve.
In the mid-2000’s, Ropp, the
already famous Shadow Sculptor, undertook a number of trips, each of which
resulted in a series of portraits of people – Africans and Gypsies, inhabitants
of Mexico and Russia, adults and kids. In 2010, he started working in color,
portrait photography remaining the primary one in his work. Ropp is the author
of several books on the art of photography; his exhibitions and workshops for
photographers are staged all over the world. Works by William Ropp form part of
the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée (Lausanne, Switzerland), the Museum of
Fine Art (Houston, USA), the Maison Européenne pour la Photographie (Paris,
France), the Museet for Fotokunst (Odense, Denmark), the New York Public
Library (the Spencer Collection, New York, USA), and other public and private
collections. galleryshchukin
All images © William Ropp
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