Ruddy Roye

Portrait of the Artist

Radcliffe Roye (born 1969, Montego Bay, Jamaica), known professionally as Ruddy Roye, is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn, specializing in editorial and environmental portraits, and photojournalism. In high school, he was immersed in music and the performing arts. He immigrated to the United States in 1990, and in 1998 graduated from Goucher College with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. There he focused on writing and the visual arts. He belongs to the Kamoinge black photographers’ collective and was featured in the recent documentary film, Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People. Ruddy has been instrumental in leading the Instagram charge as a photographer showcasing his interest in his community of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The images he portrays in his Black Portraiture or I Can’t Breathe series have been the talking point of numerous forums on Instagram. Ruddy was TIME Magazine’s Pick for Instagram Photographer of 2016.

Follow the artist on Instagram: @ruddyroye

 

“There is usually a plan whenever I start a project. Normally I would research the city, its population, its neighborhood and its coverage – be it news, arts, or history. I normally peruse the internet looking for the character of the city before I begin photographing it. When I was asked to be a part of this project I quickly said yes because my three previous visits had planted a seed. I was lucky enough to have Kerry Davis as a driver for the first two visits. His historic insights gave all the stories that swirled around in my head relevance.”