Miško Kranjec: First Place

Photos by Miško Kranjec, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Click on each image for a larger version.

Judge’s Comment:
These are all evocative, beautifully composed images. More of an exploration of a place than a story, but I can feel the process of slowly walking around, being there. The first image is ambiguous, but becomes readable when we see the second one. I feel stillness, serenity. Maybe it is more of a story about being a photographer who is fascinated by rail environments.

About the Photographer:
Miško Kranjec lives 300 yards from the fueling station depicted in his winning photographs. Kranjec was born in Ljubljana in 1947 when it was still part of Yugoslavia. After studying mechanical engineering in college and serving in the military, he embarked upon a photojournalism career in 1973, and has been the unofficial company photographer of Slovenia Railways since 1991, when Slovenia gained independence. He prefers to photograph, “when the weather conditions are everything but ideal (and boring) – snow, rain, fog, night, whatever but sunshine.”