Joco Žnidaršič Biography

Joco Žnidaršič is a former medical student, he began his photojournalistic path at the newspaper Tribuna, and continued at Tovariš and Delo. He was the first photographer who received the Prešeren Foundation award in 1977. He received numerous others for his work, including as editor of photography at Delo. His photographs are known to depict people through a profoundly sincere and humanizing lens. His camera was focused equally on gripping documentations of the Iran-Iraq war, the Corsica plane crash, the Slovenian War of Independence, as well as on portraits of the era's leading politicians. He was assigned the fascinating position of Tito's official photographer during his time at the daily newspaper Delo in the 1970s. By coincidence, his co-worker fell ill on the day of photographing Tito's arrival in Predoslje, and Žnidaršič's photographs of the event impressed the editorial office (and Tito) so much, he began taking shots of him everywhere.[1] He followed him all over the world, including on his famous visit to the Great Wall of China, Non-Aligned countries such as Sri Lanka, and elsewhere.[2] [1]