William Ropp was born in 1960.
Ropp began his career in the theatre, co-founding the "Théâtre X" company.
In 1988 he took a highly successful series of black and white photographs of human figures reflected in distorting mirrors. Several books followed.
In 1993 William Ropp became interested in uncontrolled postures, plunging his subjects into darkness in a studio and 'painting' their outlines with a beam of light, the intrusion of light creating accidents of form.
In 2007 he took a complete break from studio work and produced a powerfully dreamlike series of photographs of children in Africa.The book « Dreamt memories from Africa » followed. He then became a teacher, running workshops in Norway and elsewhere.
In 2010, Robb began working with colour, revisiting the same themes and taking inspiration from classical paintings. In 2012 The Musee de la Photography in Belgium and the Maison Européennne de la Photographie in Paris organized jointly a succesful rétrospective exhibition
Ropp lives in Nancy, France.