He was born in Şanlıurfa in 1950. He graduated from the Gazi University French Language and Literature Department. His passion for photography started in 1963 with the "Kodak" box camera, a gift from his father, which he still keeps in his archives. In 1970, he joined the Ministry of Tourism and Information. In the Ministry, where he worked until 1982, he had the opportunity to travel around Turkey several times where he took many photographs and benefited from the techniques of foreign art photographers. In 1978, his photograph of İshak Pasha Palace in Doğubayazıt was published by the Ministry in the form of a poster and postage stamp. His photographs have been used in many books and publications in Turkey and abroad. In 1976, he went to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on duty and, and the photographs he took there with photographer Olgun Özer were used in the country's first posters and brochures. Zeynel Yeşilay has worked in the Prime Ministry of the Republic of Turkey since 1993 and served as a Private Secretary for Deputy Prime Ministers, Necmettin Cevheri, Nahit Menteşe, Tansu Çiller, and Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, respectively. His prestigious book “Sonsuz Bir Şiir Türkiye” was published by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2000. He was appointed for a diplomatic duty at the TR Embassy in Nicosia in 2002. He opened his photograph exhibition titled “Sonsuz Bir Şiir Türkiye” in Cyprus in 2003, and another exhibition titled “Sonsuz Bir Şiir Kuzey Kıbrıs” in 2005. He has traveled every inch of Northern Cyprus, which offers excellent photographic value, and has taken more than one hundred thousand photographs. His photographs of Cyprus photographs were compiled into a prestigious book by the Ministry of Tourism of Northern Cyprus in 2007 with the name “Sonsuz Bir Şiir Kuzey Kıbrıs”. He opened the exhibition of Turkish photography in the city of Karachi, Pakistan in September 2007, and an exhibition of photographs of Northern Cyprus on 17 December 2008 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara. On October 29, 2010, he opened a photography exhibition titled "Sonsuz bir Şiir Türkiye" in Brussels, Belgium to commemorate Republic Day. He exhibited his photographs between 6-28 April 2011 at the City Hall in Liege. He has participated in conferences on Turkey in Switzerland and Germany. The artist, who is married to the poet and songwriter İlter Yeşilay, has a son named Mesut Volkan, who is a communication designer and drummer.