Parchment Paper Figurative Photography

European photographer Dylan Ricci created this photograph which is signed and titled on the verso and numbered #2 of an edition of 70. This is a sensual image of a male nude from behind leaning over. One arm is draped across his back while the other reaches up between his legs. Dylan Ricci restores the male nude to its rightful place in the world of fine art photography by recapturing the purity and formality pioneered by Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston and other master photographers of the 1920’s and 30’s. “I have become regarded as a photographer of the male nude, although it is not the male nude per se that interests me. What excites and fascinates me and motivates my explorations of the innate aesthetic beauty of the male body are the very same elements of image-making that have obsessed western artists for centuries: the interplay of light and form. The unadorned body of man, a powerful vehicle for the exploration of light and form, is saturated with associations – eroticism, power, religion, masculinity, sensuality, sexuality, history and the long tradition of the male nude in western art, from the ancient masters such as Michelangelo, Donatello or Caravaggio through to the more recent renderings by photographers such as Mapplethorpe or Herb Ritts. Although these powerful cultural relationships and the inspiration of the painters, sculptors and photographers who have gone before me have all influenced my exploration of the nude male as an object of art, it is the dynamic play of light on form that is my ultimate passion. My interest in partial views and extreme or unusual poses was born from the realization that the power of the face, with its countless associations and expressions, often betrays the pure aesthetic and sculptural qualities of the human body.” In addition to being published in a number of international art magazines and fine art photography books...