Photographer and painter, Yelena Yemchuk is most commonly known for her fashion and portrait photographs.
Yet her personal work, usually shot on a 35mm camera while traveling around the globe, has rarely been seen. On one such trip to her hometown of Kiev, Ukraine, Yemchuk visited Gidropark, an island on the Dnieper River that she frequented as a girl. On the beaches, sports grounds and woodlands that populate the park, she found herself face to face with the characters and faces that she continually searches for.
Taken over three summers between 2005 and 2008, Yemchuk captures life in Gidropark as only she can portray it. Families stripped down to their bathing suits (or even less) enjoying a picnic take on a Felliniesque quality through her lens. Each image is an exquisite film still, giving the viewer not only the image on the page, but richly creating an entire storyline of its possible before and after.
Yelena Yemchuk was born in Kiev, and immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was eleven. She studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and Art Center in Pasadena. She has contributed to Italian Vogue, Japanese Vogue, Another, The New Yorker and The New York Times among many others.