As far as she can remember Elena Duvernay (Born 1971) has always been drawing. She was born in Geneva, Switzerland where she still lives to date – though she’s not fond of the Swiss weather. She’s now an illustrator, photographer, drawer and sculptor. She discovered woodcarving on a marketplace where she saw portraits of celebrities carved very precisely in the wood of pipes. Elena instantly fell in love with the carvings and decided to start woodcarving classes for one year with Asseo Sylvio, a famous woodcarver in Geneva. Slowly Elena realized that woodcarving did not fit in completely with her temperament. Elena doesn’t like so much noise, and the so heavy and big pieces of wood that are difficult to carry and hold and can hurt if not careful. She also doesn’t like so much hitting the wood piece with the kind of tools used. Finally, Elena doesn’t appreciate that a once a piece of wood is removed it’s permanent and there’s no way to go back.
She gave up woodcarving and went to clay sculpture, and finally to photography. She started photography with argentic camera and says that creating image was her real passion. She now travels around the world for a few years capturing those memorable moments and scenes. Her artistic skills are in photography (urban, nature and wildlife) and in 3 Dimensional digital illustrations. Elena bought a numeric camera and discovered the pleasure of shooting without limits while she was on a walk in the nature or in the city. To improve her composition and technique by herself, she decided to buy her first reflex camera and learned to manipulate lens and zoom.