Zeynel Yeşilay

Zeynel Yeşilay

Zeynel Yeşilay was born in Şanlıurfa in 1950. He graduated in French Language and Literature from the Foreign Languages Department of Ankara Gazi University. His passion for photography began with the "Kodak" box camera he bought while still at Middle School, and which he still keeps with his archives.

In 1970, he joined the Ministry of Tourism and Information. In this Ministry, were he worked until 1982, he gained the opportunity to travel through Türkiye a number of times. He explored every region of Türkiye with the French art photographers Roland and Sabrina Michaud and benefited from learning their techniques of photography and opinions about this art. In 1978, his photograph of the İshak Paşa Palace in Doğubayazıt was published by the Ministry in the form of a poster. His photographs have been used in many books and publications in Türkiye and abroad. In 1975, as part of his job, he went to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and the photographs he took there were used in this country's first posters and brochures.

In 1981, Zeynel Yeşilay took the photographs for the film "ATATÜRK", which for the first time in Türkiye was realised as a joint Turkish, Belgian and French co-production. He has won prizes coming within the top ten in a number of national competitions he has entered. This art photographer has also held a number of mixed theme and portrait exhibitions. During the time when he worked for the Promotion Foundation of Türkiye (TÜTAV) a lot of his photographs were published in the monthly "Image of Türkiye" magazine, for which he acted as its photographic consultant. He also made multivision programmes.

Working together with respected researchers and experts at the Anatolian Vernacular Arts Research Center (AVARC) which was set up with the Turkish handicrafts expert Güran Erbek as its president, Zeynel Yeşilay has produced many photographs, multivision presentations, exhibitions and publications. He has also worked with Türkiye's leading photographers such as Sami Güner and Sıtkı Fırat.

Since 1993, Zeynel Yeşilay has worked in the Prime Ministry, and now serves as Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit's private secretary. This artist, who is married to poet and songwriter İlter Yeşilay, has one son named Volkan.