Photographing Slovenia
By David Cobb
A decade ago I traveled through Iceland exploring and planning for my 2006 walk across the island. I marveled at the stark scenery and the long hours of beautiful light-a photographer’s paradise. Today, you can’t fling a spoonful of Slátur (blood pudding) in Iceland without hitting a photographer. Those early feelings in an earlier day I had for Iceland rose again on a recent trip to Slovenia, but on this trip I felt I had barely scratched the surface of discovering the beauty of Slovenia.
The Slovenian photo opportunities are much more than the beautiful Church of Assumption atop an island of Lake Bled–waterfalls abound, gorges seemingly are everywhere, the Julian Alps are spectacular, and the countryside is filled with vineyards farms, and picturesque landscapes.
My trip began in the capital city of Ljubljana (a place I joked was the only city with more coffee shops and bicycle riders than my hometown of many years Portland, Oregon). The streets of old town are attractive and easy to wander with a camera and tripod, and at night they truly become alive with lights reflecting onto the river below. And like many European cities, Ljubljana is topped with a castle that you must explore.
Next on the list was a trip to Lake Bled which is truly in a fairyland setting. From here short trips can be made to the popular sites of Lake Bohinj, Vintgar Gorge, Savica Falls, and other parts of Triglav National Park. I’m sure there are more than a million places to discover, explore, and photograph here, but I only had time for a few as we moved on to our next destination east to the town of Ptuj which is surrounded by rolling hills and vineyards that reminded me a bit of Tuscany or even the Palouse. The rural countryside, green grasses, and fall color combined with the soft light to make for some enjoyable photography. The small city streets are also quite photogenic, and the morning city fog adds an air of mystery to it all. From here we left to explore the northern section of Croatia, a country I’ve visited in the past but wanted to see more. We returned to Slovenia along its small coastline and stayed in the town of Piran–a lively coastal city and photogenic along the harbor.
A two-hour drive brought us back to Ljubljana and completed our loop of the country. The people here were always friendly and knew English well. The food ranged from very good to excellent, so I never had a bad meal. Like I said, I barely scratched the surface of this country’s photo opportunities. Fellow Photo Cascadia member Sean Bagshaw also vacationed here in 2014 and we’re planning to conduct a fall color photo tour of this country with Slovenian photographer Luka Esenko in 2017, so stay tuned for updates.
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