Slovenian Underwater Photographers

  
 

Although Slovenians are a nation of only two million people with a coastline averaging only two centimetres per capita with a traditional attachment to mountains, we have a significant number of good underwater photographers. Nonetheless, it was Slovenian photographers who in the ex-Yugoslavia first started with diving (1937) and underwater photography (1938).

Here I would like to mention those underwater photographers, who in my personal opinion are the most responsible for the development of underwater photography in Slovenia.
 
Marjan Richter
 

Marjan Richter (1935) was the Chief of the Photo Film Laboratory of the National Radio & Television House in the period 1956-1995, now he is retired.

As a student of the Kuščer brothers, the pioneers of Slovenian diving, Marjan is one of the pioneers of Slovenian underwater photography and filmmaking, and is the first key player in its development. Since the very beginning, he was involved in colour photography and became quite a specialist in the field. He is a biologically oriented photographer with more than 50 years of experience and a regular member of evaluation committees and juries at underwater photography competitions. As a resident member of the Marine Biology Station Piran, he is taking part of many research projects in Slovenia and abroad..

In 2005 he published his richly illustrated reference book (manual) about the Slovenian sea: Our sea in Slovenian and English language.

 

  
 
 
 
Arkadij Popovič - Dadi
 

Arkadij Popovič (1941), Ph.D., is a chemist working at the Jožef Stefan Institute.

He started into underwater photography in 1963 and is the second key person in its development in Slovenia. In the beginning he engaged in many Do-It-Yourself projects, including solving various technical problems in underwater photography. He introduced a series of technical innovations and was the first to start using the Ivanoff corrector. Amongst other things, he developed the safety system for firing strobes underwater, was first to host multivision slide-shows and was by all means a pioneer of creative underwater photography in Slovenia. His knowledge and experiences he selflessly passed on to younger generations and to me among them, so I see him as the first important person of my photographic career.

  
   
 
 
Ciril Mlinar - Cic
 

Ciril Mlinar (1954) works for the Natural History Museum of Slovenia’s NAVIS Centre, where he runs the video and photo-documenting department.

Ciril is an underwater and cave photography and film specialist, filming several movies and TV shows about these topics. He received many awards for his work on various festivals, contests and championships at home and abroad. For instance, in Lienz in 1986, he received the Hans Hass gold medal for the “Cave Diving” movie, he received the silver medal in the CMAS 50 Judges Contest for his photograph in 1993 and in 1999 in the Hasselblad Super Circuit Photography Showroom one of his photographs was nominated one of the 150 most beautiful nudes in the world.
  
   
 
 
Tom Turk
 

Tom Turk, (1959) has a Ph.D. in biology, he is a professor and Vice Dean of the Biology department at the Biotechnical Faculty.

He started in underwater photography in the early year of 1986. He is a distinctly biologically-oriented photographer and author of the book Animal World of the Adriatic Sea (1996), which was undoubtedly the basic Slovenian work in this field. He participated at the World Championship twice as assistant and captain.

In 2007 he published a new and widely extended guidebook – Under the Surface of Mediterranean, which sold out immediately and was reprinted in the beginning of 2008.
  
 
 
 

Arne Hodalič
 
   

Arne Hodalič (1955) is a biologist, but currently works as a photo-reporter and professional photographer.

As of 1990 he lived in Lausanne in Switzerland and worked in Paris as a reporter, collaborating with many agencies, as a guest lecturer of photo reporting at the Parsons School of Design in Paris and as an underwater photographer for the Sector No Limits Company.
 

His world-wide reportages were published by most prominent foreign magazines and after returning to Slovenia in 1996 he was published by many domestic magazines as well. In 2001 he published his photo-monograph Travel Into The Apparent Mirror.

Although his primary line of work is photo reporting, he is an exceptionally skilled underwater photographer and his reportages are often spiced up by excellent underwater photographs.

 
 

Gianni Pecchiar
 

Gianni Pecchiar (1963) is a Slovenian from Trieste (Italy), a sales representative, by profession, but because of his great influence and presence in Slovenia, I still count him as a Slovenian underwater photographer.

His beginnings in underwater photography were as early as 1980. He is a very meticulous person, a perfectionist, and his photographs are very clean and technically perfect. In 1997 he was the Italian National Champion, as the only photographer ever to have won without a model. Today he represents a bridge between Slovenian and Italian photographers and often takes part of various international underwater photography juries.

Being often in contact with many photographers, Gianni passed on to me countless useful information regarding modern trend in world-wide underwater photography and I therefore see him the second key person I have encountered on my photographic route.
  
 
 
 

Milan Tomažin - Tyson
 

Milan Tomažin - Tyson (1968) is a member of the Police Special Forces and in his unit mainly deals with diving.

He started to practice underwater photography in 1995, when his unit got the professional Nikonos RS camera with all belonging lenses and he was entrusted with it. Soon he started to achieve visible results in various competitions and contests, receiving the silver medal for a creation in the CMAS 50 Judges Competition in Singapore in 1999. Lately, he has hosted some underwater exhibitions of his photographs (in swimming pools).
  
 
 
 

Smiljan Zavrtanik
 

Smiljan Zavrtanik (1961 - 2006) from Nova Gorica was a construction engineer working for the national power distribution company Eles

He became involved in underwater photography  in 1987. Smiljan was most known in Slovenia for being the main organizer of the traditional International Underwater Photography and Video Contest - Vodan (since 1998).

At the end of 2006 Smiljan Zavrtanik unexpectedly and prematurely passed away.
 
 
 
Boris Pihlar
 

Boris Pihlar (1945) Ph.D. in chemistry is a resident professor of analytical chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the Ljubljana University.

He has been a diver since 1994 and a photographer since 1996. In a relatively short time, he achieved some discernible results in various contests and competitions, e.g. in 2000 he was ranked 6th at the World Championship in Egypt in the Fish category.

 
 
 
Irena Čok
 

Irena Čok (1977) is a graduate student of economics and a music professor.

She has been an underwater photographer since 1998 and with a more serious undertaking since 2000 and is part of the youngest generation of underwater photographers. Despite the short time, she has proven with her stamina and serious approach to be a very promising photographer. Good rankings made her stand out in the Vodan 2002 International Underwater photography Contest. As my assistant she has worked with me at two World Championships (in Egypt in 2000 and in France in 2002) and helped me to get my best rankings.

 
   

In 2005 Irena participated for the first time the World championship (in Spain) as a contender and won 14. place in the general classification (with two top-ten places in two separate categories). With this result she became the second most successful Slovenian underwater photographer.

Due to her valuable help in my own photographic career, I count her as the third key person in my photographic development.
 

Andrej Voje
 

Andrej Voje (born 1969), Master of Electrical engineering (M. Sc.), is a representative of the younger generation of Slovenian underwater photographers. Andrej travels a lot and is mostly known for his reports, published in various newspapers and magazines.

  
 
 

See also:
Underwater Photography in Slovenia