PHOTOGRAPHER
DANIL GOLOVKIN
Danil Golovkin is a photographer with extensive experience in fashion, editorial, and portrait photography, and one of the most established Russian photographers working in the field of editorial portraiture. Trained as a graphic artist, he began his career as an art director at advertising agencies before moving into photography, an experience that shaped his distinctive approach to composition, image-making, and visual storytelling.
His work combines fashion photography with influences from painting and cinema: complex compositions, expressive lighting, carefully constructed forms, and a nuanced approach to character. Danil goes beyond creating portraits of celebrities, transforming them into distinctive visual statements in which the personality of the subject becomes part of a larger narrative.
Throughout his career, he has collaborated with Vogue, Elle, Tatler, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, Glamour, Esquire, L’Officiel, and other leading publications. His subjects have included Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid, Milla Jovovich, Natalia Vodianova, Annie Leibovitz, Philippe Starck, John Galliano, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, among many others.
Danil is the author of two monographs, Faces (2019) and Before Now (2025), published as part of the Still Art Foundation publishing program dedicated to the development and promotion of fashion photography in Russia. His first monograph, Faces, brought together 60 portraits of Russian and international cultural figures. The book was published to accompany his first solo exhibition at the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography in Moscow in 2019, followed by a presentation of the exhibition project at the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg in 2020−2021.
His second monograph, Before Now, was published in 2025 and reveals another dimension of Golovkin’s artistic practice, presenting a broader range of his visual language. The book brings individual photographs together into layered narratives that extend beyond the conventions of fashion photography. Its presentation coincided with the opening of Golovkin’s solo exhibition Fashion as Spectacle at the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, as part of the 2025 Fashion and Style in Photography Biennale. The book was curated by Elena Karisalova, founder of the Still Art Foundation. His personal work is held in museum and private collections.
His work combines fashion photography with influences from painting and cinema: complex compositions, expressive lighting, carefully constructed forms, and a nuanced approach to character. Danil goes beyond creating portraits of celebrities, transforming them into distinctive visual statements in which the personality of the subject becomes part of a larger narrative.
Throughout his career, he has collaborated with Vogue, Elle, Tatler, Harper’s Bazaar, GQ, Glamour, Esquire, L’Officiel, and other leading publications. His subjects have included Naomi Campbell, Bella Hadid, Milla Jovovich, Natalia Vodianova, Annie Leibovitz, Philippe Starck, John Galliano, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana, among many others.
Danil is the author of two monographs, Faces (2019) and Before Now (2025), published as part of the Still Art Foundation publishing program dedicated to the development and promotion of fashion photography in Russia. His first monograph, Faces, brought together 60 portraits of Russian and international cultural figures. The book was published to accompany his first solo exhibition at the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography in Moscow in 2019, followed by a presentation of the exhibition project at the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art in St. Petersburg in 2020−2021.
His second monograph, Before Now, was published in 2025 and reveals another dimension of Golovkin’s artistic practice, presenting a broader range of his visual language. The book brings individual photographs together into layered narratives that extend beyond the conventions of fashion photography. Its presentation coincided with the opening of Golovkin’s solo exhibition Fashion as Spectacle at the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, as part of the 2025 Fashion and Style in Photography Biennale. The book was curated by Elena Karisalova, founder of the Still Art Foundation. His personal work is held in museum and private collections.
