Born in Saint-Étienne and Lyon, France / Works in Marseille, France
French photographer and filmmaker based in Marseille. His series Dreams Happen After Dark turns empty night streets in Asian megacities and small American towns into scenes from films whose stories have been lost.
Etienne Perrone's photographs belong to films whose stories have been lost. At night, he hunts through cities for the cracks where reality grows denser, stranger, almost fictional. Light shifts our perception and, suddenly, the world seems to contain more than itself: a diffuse presence, between the imprint of what has just happened and the anticipation of what comes next. Each scene remains suspended, charged with both softness and tension, inhabited by an unseen narrative. The characters are absent, yet everything still seems to bear their trace.
Etienne Perrone is a French photographer, director and cinematographer based in Marseille. Trained in film at ARFIS in Lyon, he has worked behind the camera since 2000, alongside a personal practice spanning film, music and photography. His experience as a cinematographer shapes his approach to framing and light; his work as a director, his taste for narrative and emotion. His film Gloom // Bloom (2019) was awarded at international festivals, and he composes electronic music as Doppelhandel.
His series Dreams Happen After Dark, shot in Asian megacities and small American towns, received a Juror's Pick at the 2025 LensCulture Street Photography Awards and was published in The Guardian. In 2026, it was a finalist for the LensCulture Awards and the AOP Open Award in London. His prints are held in private collections in eight countries, and one of his photographs was licensed for a hotel project in Los Angeles.
AWARDS
2026 Finalist, LensCulture Street Photography Awards
2026 Finalist, AOP Open Award, Series (Association of Photographers, London)
2026 Photographer of the Month, The Glasgow Gallery of Photography
2025 Juror's Pick, LensCulture Street Photography Awards
2018 Editor's Pick, Life Framer
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2027 Ras Al Khaimah Art Festival, UAE (upcoming)
2027 AOP Open Awards Finalists' Exhibition, London (upcoming)
2026 Urban, The Glasgow Gallery of Photography
2026 ABANDONED, DUSK Gallery, Santa Fe
2026 Camera Work: Shadow and Light, Black Box Gallery, Portland
2025 Beijing and Shenzhen, group exhibitions
2019 Too Late, Ici Est l'Art / Epicentre Factory, Clermont-Ferrand (solo)
2017 Galerie Jour et Nuit, Paris (solo)
