The judges of competition Picture The Difference awarded my project Kiribati with 1st place. Here is the description of the 1st Place award: “A once in a life time trip to Uganda, where you will see first-hand the incredible work ActionAid are doing to educate underprivileged children. You will spend some time fuelling their creativity through the medium of photography, an experience neither you nor them will ever forget. Your photographic record of the trip will then form the centre piece of our London exhibition of the competition.” Very grateful to receive this award and looking forward to Uganda!

About a month ago I was approached by the photo director from Bicycling Magazine. Bicycling is the world’s leading cycling magazine – it covers the entire spectrum of cycling from road cycling to mountain biking to recreational cycling and cycling for health and fitness. They decided to fly one of their editors to Slovenia for a week to work on a story about Igor Kenk.

Igor Kenk, the proprietor of a Toronto used bike shop who supplemented his income by “stealing” a bike or two or, as it turns out, 2,865 bikes. He was arrested back in 2008, served some jail time, gained infamy as the most prolific bike thief in history, and subsequently fled Canada for his native land of Slovenia. Igor, not surprisingly, was demonized by the media and bike community in Toronto.

But it’s since become clear that he’s not the evil dude he was made out to be, and that there are more complexities to the story than first appeared. Many of the bikes he rescued from landfills and restored with the idea of providing them to low-income folks who needed a way to get around. The story explores what really happened in Canada. Was Igor maybe on to something, despite the obvious flaws in his business practices? He is, by all accounts, a fascinating man with great love for cycling and bikes. I really enjoyed working with him and editor from Bicycling magazine.

I am glad to announce that I was being selected for the 2012 PDN Photography Annual. My winning images are featured in the June 2012 issue of PDN and in an extended online gallery. This well known photography competition awards excellence in photography annually, in several different categories. The jury awarded my student project Kiribati is Gone that I have produced last year at London College of Communication as my Masters project.

Publicis advertising agency invited me to collaborate on the campaign “Our Policyholders Sleep Better”. My work for them consisted of field and studio photography, as well as working with a 3D CGI production studio. Insurance company Adriatic Slovenica (AS) opened a new chapter in their communication, emphasizing satisfaction of their clients with the services they have been receiving. A good night’s sleep was picked as the central idea of the campaign, and so the campaign is making the statement that AS’s clients can always depend on their insurance company and can thus continue to sleep well even through major loss events.

Client: Adriatic Slovenica
Agency: Publicis
Photography and production: Ciril Jazbec

The Kiribati Is Gone project was covered by major world news media that also published photo galleries of the story. I was very happy with such an outcome, as the project has been achieving its objective of reaching to the public and informing it about what is happening on Kiribati.

The jury of this year’s Slovenian advertising festival really made my day on thursday. I have got the award for best photography in advertising. And while I did claim the award at the ceremony, I can’t claim all the credit, of course – a lot of it goes to Publicis advertising agency for coming up with the creative and of course for bringing me on board of the project in the first place.

As you know Publicis invited me to collaborate on an exciting project for NKBM, a Slovenian bank. It was one of my biggest undertakings last year and coming pretty close to a dream project.

How to get Slovenian people to think about their financial future? And while at it, how to position NKBM bank as the answer to their financial problems? Publicis came up with a campaign called “Prepared for tomorrow”, which measured just how prepared the Slovenians are for the future. My work was photographing the so-called ambassadors of the campaign. Well-known Slovenians were brought into the project to stress the importance of planning your financial future.

Towards the end of 2011, I was invited to take on a project by slovenian-dutch knitwear label - Mimoods Knits. They asked me to produce a photo-shoot for their new collection Fall/Winter 2012. Photo-shoot took place around magical winter landscape in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia. We worked with an experienced and amazing model Anja Krvina who helped us achieve documentary-fashion photos in a very natural style.

Client: Mimoods Knits
Styling: Barbara Žgalin
Make-up: Špela Veble
Hair: Matjaž Šiška
Model: Anja Krvina
Assistants: Anže Osterman, Katarina Jazbec

Last September and October, I have been photographing the disappearing islands of Kiribati. Due to global warming and rising sea levels, Kiribati is slowly being engulfed by the Pacific ocean.

Kiribati aroused my curiosity after I’d read an interview with Anote Tong, the president of the small island nation, who warned about his country becoming uninhabitable due to rising sea levels and increasing salination. As Mr. Tong put it: “Kiribati might already have reached the point of no return. To plan for the day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful, but I think we have to do that.”

You are welcome to visit website: THE END. KIRIBATI is GONE.

Like FB group and follow the project: KIRIBATI IS GONE.

Life on Kiribati - featured by FOTO8 as Story of the week. They have published some pictures you can’t see on main website and audio interviews as well.

The story of Kiribati mirrors the modern life in many developing Pacific countries – nations that have fallen to hardship due to global warming and rising sea levels. Kiribati is a small island nation of 33 atolls spread out in the South Pacific; the area is the size of Alaska but the amount of dry land could fit within Manhattan. Inhabited by about 100,830 people, Kiribati is among the world’s poorest countries. It has few natural resources other than fish and copra, the dried meat of coconut.

Kiribati aroused my curiosity after I’d read an interview with Anote Tong, the president of the small island nation, who warned about his country becoming uninhabitable due to the rising sea levels and increasing salination. As Mr. Tong put it: “Kiribati might alreadyhave reached the point of no return. To plan for the day when you no longer have a country is indeed painful, but I think we have to do that.” The story of a disappearing country was so powerful I just had to experience it for myself.

Please VISIT website: THE END. KIRIBATI is GONE.

Like FB group and follow the project: KIRIBATI IS GONE.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, the project “Prepared for tomorrow” for NKBM bank was one of my biggest undertakings this year. The first part included 4 ambassadors of the campaign, you can check those photos here - together with a bit of project background. The second part of my work was focused on photographing 15 well-known Slovenians for print ads and brochures. Take a look at some of the photos below and let me know what you think in the comments!

Client: Nova KBM
Photography and production: Ciril Jazbec
Agency: Publicis
Styling: Emigrant
Make-up: Ana Lazovski
Assistants: Klemen Ilovar, Anže Osterman