Focus on Fabrice KNOLL, architect & designer, photographer & writer

 

Fabrice KNOLL has used photography as a means of expression since the age of 10. His first camera was a square formatted Kodak Instamatic (1972), then in 1978, an Olympus OM-1 manual reflex camera became his second sight and still functions almost exclusively as his choice for 35mm and 100mm lenses.

 

Attracted very early in his life to the graphic aspects, poetry, humanity and truth of the photography of Brassaï, Doisneau, Depardon and Ronis, Fabrice KNOLL let chance and his journeys play a role in what he would photograph.  The photos from his high resolution camera on his mobile phone have become, like a painter’s sketch-book, a series of impressions that served later for more reflective compositions but also sometimes full artistic creations themselves.

 

« I use black and white film from time to time, and especially appreciate its attributes for portraiture, but my daily life is bathed in unexpected color contrasts, » Fabrice KNOLL tells us, « which, like the assembly of wine grapes, create complex and interesting graphical and micro photography results.  Above all, my view of the world can only be attested to in captured instants, confronted with the never-ending series of real or virtual images that assail us in our daily life. »

 

His photos are not planned in advance, or retouched (or if so, very minimally). His technique, although acquired from several decades of experience, matters little for him, he by far prefers the challenges of creating his composition within the constraints of a given format, whether that be rectangular, elongated or square, this last format thanks to a 1960’s Yashica 6×6, given to him by a family member in 1996, which provides sometimes unexpected and unintentional, but in this way, perfectly unique plays on light due to a defective light sensor…

 

In 2012, the latest acquisition : a numeric Leica M8, which, with its incredible lens quality, now permits him at last to transcribe what he calls « even the air quality around the subjects I am photographing ».

 

 

« The (desired) photo is the product of being in the right place right before the right moment, imagining in the blink of an eye a personal idea to an unlikely scenario »

 

~ Fabrice KNOLL

 

Fabrice KNOLL is associated with his brother Didier since 1986 for their architecture and interior design projects. www.dfknoll-architecturedesign.com