About Tatyana Mitrofanova

1981 - Member of the Union of Architects of the Russian Federation.

Prize-winner in numerous Leningrad and All-Union architectural  

competitions.

1990 - Awarded the Gold Medal of the Union of Architects of the Russian Federation for the best building of the year; earned a license as a professional architect and founded the Mitrofanova Architectural Studio.

1999 - emigrated to the United States; became a citizen, worked in American architectural offices.

2018 - earned an architectural license to practice in New York State.

Although I am now retired from designing buildings, I photograph them.

As a student learning about contemporary architecture, I pored over magazines full of photographs like Architectural Record, Architectural Forum, Architecture, and Aujourd’hui. Some of the images etched themselves into my memory, but not their makers’ names.

When I came to America and learned about architectural photography, I recognized my favorites as made by Ezra Stoller. Through his photographs, I learned about World Contemporary Architecture and absorbed his vision and his understanding of architecture as an art, all very important to me, so that when I photograph architecture now, I see it as a work of art. Each image, therefore, is not just a depiction of what we see, but also a presentation of how we see. 

Another American photographer, Minor White, may have thought along these lines when he wrote, “Do not show me what is, show me what else it is.” 

Ideas makes an artist.