[4] The Derujinsky family served the House of Romanov since the reign of Peter the Great, and their relatives included the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov[5] and the painter Mikhail Vrubel.
Derujinsky was retained as a freelance photographer, working alongside Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, and Louise Dahl-Wolfe for editors Carmel Snow and Diana Vreeland and art director Alexey Brodovitch.
[9] In 1957, to commemorate the inauguration of Pan Am’s Boeing 707, Derujinsky, dubbed “the White Russian,”[3] travelled around the world with Ruth Neumann and Nena Von Schlebrügge, photographing the former in 11 countries in the space of 28 days.
[5] He earned an instructor’s license as a glider pilot and was instrumental in starting the Durango Soaring Club at La Plata Airport, now known as Animas Air Park.
[14] His achievements later in life include building a carbon fiber bicycle, whose patented design was one of the first to be used in an air tunnel test, as well as being used in the 1984 Olympic trials in Los Angeles.