William A. Sokolenko was born in the South Russian Cossack city of Novocherkassk in 1934. He grew up in Issyk, a small town in the foothills of the Central Asian Tyan Shan mountains, where his family moved when his father was arrested as a political dissident, and imprisoned in a Kazakhstan labor camp. In Kazakhstan, W. Sokolenko became interested in naturalist photography. Until recently it was his hobby. Now it is his part-time profession.

Dr. William Sokolenko is a senior researcher in the Siberian Institute of chemistry and chemical metallurgy of Russian Academy of Sciences. He published about a hundred of scientific works, and patented six inventions.

Dr. Sokolenko is also one of the prominent figures in Russian mountain sports. In 1977, his team of pioneering mountain climbers was the first in the world to successfully negotiate the most difficult route crossing the Pamir mountains (reaching 20,000 feet), for which they were awarded the title of the nation's champions.

He's done work for publishers, Russian magazines, marketing agencies, and has held 10 personal exhibitions in his home city Krasnoyarsk and other cities.

Fifty William Sokolenko's photographs of the Krasnoyarsk Stolby National Park were selected for UNESCO educational project.