We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Yelena Zhavoronkova a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Yelena, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

GRANA [grey-nuh]

Living in Northern California for 35 years, I wasn’t aware of the harsh climate of beautiful Lake County until recently. It’s an amazing place with stunning landscapes, very hot summers, and quite cold winters. Not many regular California plants can survive and prosper there. There are only a couple of native trees proven right for the area, and the grasses are very strong and adaptive. To continue the genome process in these extreme circumstances, nature has developed a special way: creating strong vessels to save the seeds of future generations and hold them until conditions are right to spread them around.

These vessels—cones, pods, and acorns—have a very powerful presence and contain immense beauty, which drew me to start the “GRANA” (Latin for “SEEDS”) series and to celebrate the beauty of nature. Long years of drought dried out the hills and valleys, fueling long periods of wildfires and killing everything around. It seems that using the platinum/palladium print process—with its sharp details, numerous shades, and super matte finish—was the right medium to express my vision.

The platinum/palladium process is one of the more exacting alternate processes out there, and I love the combination of its handmade and scientific aspects. This includes everything from a new way of thinking about how to shoot specifically for PPP to the alchemy of mixing chemicals, choosing paper, painting with the sensitizer, and the magic of seeing the final image emerge from the paper.

Yelena, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a San Francisco-based Fine Art Photographer and Graphic Designer. I received a Master’s degree in Industrial Design from the St. Petersburg Academy of Art and Industry, Russia, and have worked as a graphic designer for over three decades. Over the past decade and a half, I have been intensively studying and working in photography, which helps me express my artistic vision. My projects are simultaneously very personal and universal in nature, speaking to viewers on an intimate level that is familiar to all.



It was my lack of faith that I was born and spent the first half of my life in the beautiful city of St. Petersburg, which influenced me enormously. The city has a specific palette of cool grays with just a few splashes of color—where the cold winter night skies and unsetting summer sun work as a background for the cityscape. Monochromatic and black and white photography represents the mood of the city perfectly. Regular visits to museums—the State Hermitage Museum in particular—were notable additions to my art education. I knew my way around the Hermitage’s labyrinth-like halls by heart and could easily navigate to my favorite Rodins and Matisses on the third floor, the Rembrandt Room, and the Dutch Golden Age masterpieces on the second level. I continue to look at images of art, without limiting myself only to photography. And I am really drawn to works by the Old Masters—Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Sandro Botticelli, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, and Hans Holbein the Younger.

Since 2010, my photography projects have been exhibited in the de Young Museum of Arts in San Francisco, the City Hall of San Francisco, and the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, California; Blue Sky Gallery and LightBox Gallery in Oregon; Anzenberger Gallery in Vienna, Austria, and many other galleries around the United States and in Europe. My works have been published in the online edition of The New Yorker magazine, Black and White magazine, All About Photo magazine, Square magazine, Analog Forever magazine; and featured in Shutterbug magazine and Transformation literary journal, among others. As a part of the Indie Photobook Library Collection, my “Memories in Red” book is included in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

My Archival Digital, Silver Gelatin, Platinum/Palladium prints, and Copperplate Photogravures are part of many private collections and institutions in the USA and Europe. Currently, I am represented by the Anzenberger Gallery in Vienna, Austria, and Corden|Potts Gallery, San Francisco, CA.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I’ve enjoyed graphic design and photography equally, using both mediums to express my artistic vision since the 1970s. However, it’s only in the last decade and a half that I’ve chosen to focus primarily on fine art photography, gradually moving away from commercial design projects. Being a graphic designer in the commercial field often means working for someone else, regardless of how exciting a project might be. When I began concentrating on my photographic projects, for the first time in my life, I allowed myself the freedom of imagination and creativity through photographic processes.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

It’s very simple—my life, with all its aspects, is driving my creative journey. I’ve collected so much experience living through many happy and not-so-happy moments that I’m not sure I have enough time left to express it all in my art. And I welcome more and more such experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://photo.yzdesign.com
• Instagram: @yzhavoronkova
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yelena.zhavoronkova
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/yelena-zhavoronkova-20ba426

Image Credits

Yelena Zhavoronkova