TITLE: Paris, 2016-2025

My work explores the limits of black and white photography, particularly its ability to render different shades of grey through contrast and shadow, in order to simplify the representation of reality.

The Paris series takes an abstract approach to depicting the city, while retaining a direct relationship with reality.

It is part of the tradition of modernist photography, but it distinguishes itself by the perfect appearance of digitally retouched images taken with a medium-format camera.

Shadows play a key role in simplifying reality, dissociating locations from their classical visual representation.

The economy of form thus created enables the depiction of Paris to be radically transformed, going beyond the customary descriptive task of photography.

At first glance, the viewer perceives the overall contrast of the image, with only the light lines standing out against the shadows.

As the eye gradually adapts, the details in the shadows become apparent, introducing a second way of reading the photograph and enriching the way it is perceived.

Paris is thus viewed anew, moving from shadow to abstraction.

AUTHOR: Bruno Sassarone (France)

Bruno Sassarone, born in 1975, lives and works in Paris.

He holds a master’s degree in law, but interrupted his legal career after winning PHOTO magazine’s 2005 Canon Prize and the Front Cover Prize of the January/February 2006 issue.

Since 2008, his work has been exhibited in galleries in Paris and Brussels.

‘Paris’, his first book of photographs, with a preface by actress Aurore Clément, was published in 2025 by 5 Continents Éditions (Milan) in French and English.

His work explores abstraction through significant places, in order to question the representation of reality.