Stand inside your love; The story of Yelena Yemchuk

Photographer, Painter, Film Maker, and Muse: 

Yelena Yemchuk is the embodiment of all four of those titles.

Born in the Ukraine, she moved to Brooklyn when she was a teenager.

Unable to speak any english, Yelena lived in an isolated world. She spent most of her time connecting with those around her through her 35 mm camera, taking snapshots of her classmates.

She first studied art at Parsons school of Design in New York. Later she would also continue her studies in photography at Art Center in Pasadena, California.

She is currently known as an art photographer who shoots fashion. Even today she still shoots exclusively in film, a practice that is virtually unheard of in the commercial world today.

She has shot for Japanese, Korean, Russian, British and Italian Vogue. Her credits also include W, Lula Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Numero, Elle, Kenzo, Another Magazine, and Harpaars Bizarre Korea just to name a few.

Even though she is a well respected fashion photographer, those in the media mostly remember her for her work with The Smashing Pumpkins.

It all started with Adore.

She did the album artwork for the band. Upon meeting her Billy Corgan recalled that he was astounded that she was so young. Her images spoke to him so deeply, he thought for sure that they could have only been created by someone older.

Yelena became Corgan's muse and also his lover for many years.

Billy and Yelena.

During her time with him she directed music videos for the band which included 33  and Zero.

33.

Both videos speak of an older time, one that is influenced heavily by dreams and baroque culture. Yelena's love of the surreal was extremely evident.

She also, as I stated before, became the muse for Corgan. This was especially the case with the song and video for "Stand inside your love". Yelena acted in the video as Salome, which they had based off the story by Oscar Wilde. The film was shot in black and white, it was supposed to be reminiscent of silent films. Corgan said that the song and video were a dedication of his love for her. 

"Stand inside your love"

When the time came for the two of them to part, which often happens in beautiful love stories, Yelena ventured back to her hometown in the Ukraine to take photographs of the people in her neighborhood. She wanted to document the social change that was going on with the end of communism.

She also started to paint. As with her affair in fashion and commercial photography, painting started out as just something she thought would be fun. Always pushing herself to create in a multitude of art forms, there really are no limits for her surrealistic and dreamy images.

Based on the marriage of soviet and american culture that had invaded her childhood, her illustrations are often as haunting as they are humorous. 

"They're sort of about relationships and breakups, filtered through old Ukrainian folk tales," says Yemchuk

Billy Corgan asked her years after their departure to illustrate his poetry book, Blinking with Fists.

Yelena in white speaking with a collector at one of her art shows.

Her love of painting would also be evident in her photography. She even did a tribute to Egon Schiele with this fashion spread for Vogue Italia.

I was initially drawn to Yelena's work when I was a student at art school. A friend told me about her and when I saw her photographs she inspired me to paint more. The fragile energy of her images combined with the saturation of color grabbed my imagination. 

She also photographed another artist, Sasha Pivovarova, when her modeling career was just beginning. Sasha is also a painter who was discovered by her photographer husband. Her entrance into the fashion realm as a model only helped her further to find her footing as a fine artist.

Even further proof that Yelena has a gift with capturing the essence of the people she photographs, as well as their untold stories are her images of Courtney Love.

Which show a delicate and gamine side of the singer that many do not associate with the rough and loquacious personality that the media portrays.

"People who hire me know I'm not just interested in pretty dresses," she says. "They want me to tell some kind of story."

And that is precisely what she does.

Fin.