The process of working on still lives is very exciting. Even after you think you have imagined a final outcome in your mind—what seems to be just a quick arrangement and a camera click away, it surprises you and you find yourself drawn to changing the composition and adjusting its elements. Everything turns to motion—backgrounds, objects, lights. Piles of discarded “left overs” begin to appear and grow. At a certain point, you glance at the piles and see a new inspiration—an interesting shape, a fresh spark of light, an unexpected color. It triggers the imagination and sends you on another journey—a new story that wishes to be told.
My collection “Behind the Scenes,” is a result of one such journey. For its images, I worked with objects I had previously used in other projects, but had originally regarded as supporting elements. This time, I decided to elevate them to leading roles of their own by organizing them in laconic sets and shooting them with straightforward lighting. The approach gave me an opportunity to express my fascination with beauty found in simple shapes, in symmetry of enclosing spaces, and in relation between objects and lighting.
Yelena Zhavoronkova
Yelena Zhavoronkova is a California based Fine Art Photographer and Graphic Designer. She received a Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the St. Petersburg Academy of Art and Industry, Russia, and has worked as a graphic designer for over three decades. Over the past decade Yelena has been intensively studying and working in photography, which helps her to express her artistic vision. Yelena’s projects are simultaneously very personal and universal in nature, speaking to the viewers on an intimate level that is familiar to all.
Since 2010 her projects has been exhibited in de Young Museum of Arts, City Hall of San Francisco, Corden|Potts Gallery, SF Camerawork, RayKo Photo Center in San Francisco; Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California; SoHo Photo Gallery of New York; Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts; Blue Sky and LightBox Photographic Galleries in Oregon; and many other galleries around United States. Her projects were shown in Anzenberger Gallery in Vienna, Austria; in Milan, Italy and participated in Noorderlicht International Photo Festival INVIVO in Museum Belvédere, Heerenveen,The Netherlands. Her works and interviews were published in the online edition of The New Yorker magazine; Black and White, Analog Forever, All About Photo, Shutterbug magazines and Transformation literary journal, among others. As a part of the Indie Photobook Library Collection Yelena’s “Memories in Red” book is included in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. For four consecutive years (2016-19) she was a finalist in the Photolucida’s International Competition Critical Mass.
Yelena’s Archival Digital, Silver Gelatin, Platinum/Palladium prints and Copperplate Photogravures are the part of many private collections and institutions in USA and in Europe. Currently she represented by the Anzenberger Gallery in Vienna, Austria and Corden|Potts Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
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