Photography
is a great passion of Primož Jakopin. It was a low heat affair at times, especially
in the beginning, but flamed out at every opportunity. This page
brings the main accents of this side of his life.
- 2018 October, Underground world of Primož Jakopin, Dom Kultury w Lipniku / Bielsko-Biała
- 2012 April, Knjižnica Bena Zupančiča Library, Postojna
- 2005 September, Hotel Sabotin, Solkan : Invitation (in Slovenian)
- 2005 March, Central Economic Library, Ljubljana : Invitation
- 2004 November and December, Dom krajanov Gallery, Vipavski križ : Invitation
- 2004 October, Knjižnica Bena Zupančiča Library, Postojna : Invitation
- 2004 May, Village Museum and Gallery, Laze : Invitation
- 2004 March and April, Geoplin Gallery, Ljubljana : List of Exhibited Works (in Slovenian)
- 2004 January, Temple des Eaux, Zaghouan, Tunisia : Avant-propos and
Liste des tableaux exposés (both in French)
- 1994 September, Laze Primary School, Laze : Portraits from Jakovica
- 1979 October, Emonska vrata Gallery, Ljubljana : Slike z izletov / Pictures from Trips on Karst
- 1977 October, Hotel Golf Gallery, Bled : Blejske razglednice / Bled Postcard Motifs
When his father returned
from the 1957 summer school of Polish language in Warsaw and Krakow,
he brought Primož a present, a roll-film fixed-focus lens camera Druh. It could
shoot either 6 x 4.5 cm or 6 x 6 cm format.
Photographs were precious at the time, none to be wasted, but it was
a start. The picture below was taken around 1960. It depicts his
brother Japec in the yard of the father's native farm in Dramlje, northeastern Slovenia, with brother's first hunting trophy, a jay bird.
During his high school years he occasionally took pictures with a more advanced tool,
his father's Zorki 4 camera. An example is the following colour slide of his
schoolfried Mika Briški, taken around 1965 in the ground floor of his parents' house,
in his room. He entered school at the age of 6, a year earlier than
his classmates, and could hardly be a match for the high-flying Mika.
At about the same time he purchased his first more ambitious camera,
a Russian Lubitel (Ljubitelj in Slovenian,
Любитель
in Russian, meaning Amateur) 6 x 6 cm twin-lens reflex. Its bright viewfinder lens
was excellent for framing the motif in low light, especially in caves. When the lens was
stopped down the image quality was very good, even if enlarged considerably. Along these lines is
the picture below, taken from a tripod, using camera's self-timer and illuminated by
a bulb flash. It
depicts moving rocks to widen a narrow passage in Skednena jama cave with Jozl, Tačka and Klok
(Primož's caving nickname). Technical data: camera Lubitel, f 11, 1/30 sec., negative black-and-white film Ilford HP 4,
flashbulb Philips PF3; self-timer, 1970.
Yet Lubitel was, despite its apparent simplicity
and very accessible price, a sophisticated camera which commanded a studio approach and use of a
tripod for best results. For snapshot occasions he used his spouse
Slava's Kodak Instamatic 155X 28 x 28 mm format camera
with Magicube
flash bulbs. The picture below was taken with this camera, in the
kitchen of his grandparents home in Leskovec, around 1972. It depicts his mother
Gitica and his grandmother Brigita (Gita).
For the occasion of the caving expedition
to Brezno pri gamsovi glavici / Abyss at the Chamois Head
above lake Bohinj in the Julian Alps in September 1972, at the time the deepest cave in
Yugoslavia and among the deepest in the world (in 1972 only two caves
were deeper than 1.000 m) he borrowed a Minolta SR-T 101 single lens reflex (SLR)
camera from his brother Japec. He mostly shot formal horizontally-framed portraits of expedition participants with a few more casual photos such
as the following one. It depicts his friend and caving buddy Jurij Anđelić - Yeti, in the morning after he managed to get out of the tent, on a plateau
near the cave.
A real breakthrough came in the second half of 1976 when his old dream,
an acquisition of an own SLR camera, came true. It was
a Fujica ST605.
URL of this page: https://www.jakopin.net/photo/index_en.php
Page started on February 25, 2017, last change: May 12, 2024.
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