Ante Verzotti

Ante Verzotti is a Croatian photographer, cinematographer, and film director. He graduated in 1973 in cinematography from the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Czech Republic. He taught photography and cinematography at the Academy of Arts and at the College of Multimedia and Communication Technologies in Split. Since 1992, he has worked as a photojournalist and Photo Editor for Slobodna Dalmacija.

His film work emerged from the experimental movement centered around Kino Club Split, known as the Split Film School of the 1960s. Among his authorial short films, Twist-Twist (1962), Objective (Objektiv, 1966), and Fluorescences (Fluorescencije, 1967) stand out in particular. He earned the title of Master of Amateur Film in 1967 and became the most awarded author at GEFF, the International Festival of Experimental Film. In professional cinematography, he worked as Director of Photography and second-unit cinematographer on numerous films and television series.

He has been involved in photography since 1958. As an artistic photographer, he is especially recognized for his visually refined depictions of Dalmatian landscapes, portraits, and scenes from everyday life in Split. He has held 25 solo exhibitions and participated in more than ninety group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad. A selection of his photographs featuring Split motifs was published in the photo monograph Split (2004). By 2018, he had produced twenty-five independent films, and in 2009 he was awarded the first honorary title of Master of Photography (MF-HFS), presented by the Croatian Photographic Union.

Božidar Vukičević

Born in Split on December 23, 1966, Božidar Vukičević graduated from the School of Applied Arts with a specialization in photography. He published his first photographs in 1984 in the youth magazine Omladinska iskra. Since 1987, he has worked as a photojournalist for Slobodna Dalmacija, the highest-circulation daily newspaper of former Yugoslavia and later of Croatia.

At the beginning of the war in Croatia, he documented wartime events across the country: from Eastern Slavonia, Posavina, Banija, and Western Slavonia, through the Dalmatian battlefields of Zadar, Šibenik, and the front lines in the Dalmatian hinterland, to southern Croatia, including Operation Storm, which marked the end of his wartime reporting period. Alongside the conflict in Croatia, he also covered the war in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina. During these war years, he began collaborating with the photo agency Associated Press, through which many of his notable photographs were published in international media outlets.

Since 2006, he has worked as Photo Editor and photojournalist for the magazine Otvoreno more (Open Sea), where he has focused primarily on underwater photography, marine subjects, and sea-related feature stories. In 2012, he joined the photo agency CROPIX. The distinction between artistic photography, which he enjoys pursuing, and press photography has never been an obstacle for him. Božidar Vukičević has combined his two passions into a single profession in a way unmatched in Croatia. For more than thirty years, he has worked with equal success both on land and underwater.

He is a member of Fotoklub Split and the Photojournalists’ Association of the Croatian Journalists’ Association. Since 2010, he has also been a member of ULUPUH (the Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts). He has organized numerous solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions. His work has been featured in numerous photographic monographs. His photograph One Hundred Years is part of the permanent collection of the Split Fine Arts Gallery.

He has received numerous awards, among which the following stand out: Golden Camera (1993), awarded by the Croatian Journalists’ Association; the Pavao Cajzek Award for the category Everyday Life and Best Press Photograph (2008), awarded by the Croatian Journalists’ Association – Photojournalists’ Association; Best Sports Photograph (2011), awarded by the Croatian Journalists’ Association – Photojournalists’ Association; the annual Miljenko Smoje Journalism Award (2021), awarded by Slobodna Dalmacija; and the Blue Feather Award (Plavo pero, 2023), awarded by SSM.

Matko Biljak

Matko Biljak was born in 1968 in Split. He has been involved in photography since 1985 and has worked professionally since 1987. He began his photographic career at Omladinska iskra, and since 1988 he has been associated with Slobodna Dalmacija, where he has worked as a photojournalist since 1997. Since 2007, he has served as Photo Editor of Slobodna Dalmacija for its daily and specialized editions. He has edited numerous photo monographs and books published by Slobodna Dalmacija.

Since 1991, he has actively documented wartime events in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, covering nearly all major battlefields. During his work as a war correspondent in Croatia, he was captured twice. From 1993 to 2005, he collaborated with the Reuters news agency as both photographer and editor, and continued working with international photo agencies, including Getty Images, for which he produced photo essays. Reuters selected three of his photographs for its prestigious Golden Prints edition.

His photographs have been published in numerous international newspapers and magazines, including Time Magazine, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, Stern, The Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Paris Match, Le Figaro, and USA Today.

Since 2000, he has been the resident artistic photographer of the Croatian National Theatre in Split. His photographs have appeared in monographs and books, and he has exhibited in more than forty solo and group exhibitions in Croatia and abroad, receiving multiple awards and recognitions.

Among his most notable awards and distinctions are:
2005 – FotoGraphic Award, at the 2nd International Graphic Biennale in Split
2005 – Ivo Fabijan Award, presented by the Photojournalists’ Association of the Croatian Journalists’ Association for photography in the field of culture
2003 – Reuters Best News Pictures
2003 – Selected among the 12 best news photographs in the international selection of the FPA (Free People Organization)
1991 – Golden Camera Award, Croatian Journalists’ Association

Robert Matić

Robert Matić rođen je 1965. godine u Trbounju kraj Drniša. Od 1990. do 1997. godine boravio je u Londonu, gdje je na City Westminster Collegeu završio studij fotografije na višoj školi za dizajn.
 
Kao slobodni fotograf tijekom dugogodišnje karijere djelovao je u različitim fotografskim žanrovima, no posebno mjesto u njegovu radu zauzima portretna fotografija. Njegov autorski pristup temelji se na bliskom i povjerljivom odnosu s portretiranom osobom, pri čemu su poštovanje modela, međusobno povjerenje i pozitivna atmosfera ključni elementi fotografskog procesa. Najčešće portretira osobe snažnih i profiliranih individualnosti koje su svojim djelovanjem ostavile trag u društvenom, kulturnom ili umjetničkom prostoru.
 
Na tim je postavkama nastala izložba Portret predtsavljena 2014. godine u  Galeriji umjetnina Split
Matićevi portreti nastajali su od ranih devedesetih godina do danas, a među portretiranima nalaze se brojne istaknute osobe hrvatske kulturne i javne scene, poput Vasko Lipovac, Ante Tomić, Duško Kečkemet, Tonči Šitin, Olinka Vištica i drugi.
 
Kao fotoreporter radio je za Slobodnu Dalmaciju, a profesionalno iskustvo stjecao je i kao nastavnik fotografije u Obrtničkoj školi „Natko Nodilo” u Splitu te kao fotograf u splitskom Zavodu za zaštitu spomenika kulture. Od 2007. godine djeluje kao urednik fotografije i fotograf u mjesečniku Nautica, a surađivao je i s tjednikom Vrime tijekom njegova izlaženja.
 
Njegov fotografski opus karakteriziraju dokumentarna neposrednost, likovna osjetljivost i naglašena humanistička dimenzija portreta, čime zauzima posebno mjesto unutar suvremene hrvatske fotografije.

Stanko Karaman

Stanko Karaman was born in 1943 in Split, the city to which he remained permanently connected both professionally and personally throughout his life. He has been involved in photography and journalism since 1964, when, as a member of the Split bureau of the newspaper publisher Vjesnik, he collaborated with Sportske novosti, Vjesnik, Arena, Plavi vjesnik, and Studio. During this period, he also attended journalism school at the Institute of Journalism in Belgrade.

In 1968, he joined the Croatian daily newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija, where he worked until 2006. During his long career there, he served as Head of the Photography Department and as a member of the newspaper’s Editorial Board, at a time when Slobodna Dalmacija’s photo department was considered one of the most respected in the former state. During the 1990 European Athletics Championships (PEA 90), held in Split, he headed the championship’s photography service.

Karaman participated in numerous group exhibitions, where he received many awards and commendations. His photographs Cinderella from Dicmo and On Assignment are today regarded as anthology works of Croatian photography. At Fotoklub Split, he also organized the notable solo exhibition Dalmatia Came Back to Me in Memory.

His photographs from the Croatian War of Independence are preserved in the archives of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Croatia and were published in the monograph Croatia 1991 – Photographs. His body of work also includes an important contribution to Croatian music and sports publishing. Throughout his long career, he collaborated with many leading figures of the Croatian music scene and created numerous recognizable photographs and album covers.

Karaman’s photographs have been published in many monographs and books, including Historic Matches of Hajduk, Hajduk Split 1911–1981, From Stari Plac to the Top of Europe, Basketball Club Jugoplastika 1945–1980, Marco Polo of Korčula, and The Trilogy of St. Eustace the Martyr.

His photographic and journalistic work remains most strongly defined by his documentation of Dalmatia. Recognized for his powerful documentary style and sensitivity toward people and place, Stanko Karaman left a lasting mark on Croatian photojournalism and artistic photography.

Tom Dubravec

Tom Dubravec was born in 1970 in Split. He has worked professionally as a photographer since the early 1990s, and from 1992 to 2005 he worked as a photojournalist for the daily newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija. Between 1992 and 1995, he photographed in war zones across Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Since 1993, he has collaborated with international photo agencies AFP, EPA, and Sipa Press, through which his photographs have been published in renowned international magazines and newspapers, including Le Figaro, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, and the International Herald Tribune. Since 2005, he has worked as a photographer for the weekly magazine Globus, and since 2011 he has been affiliated with the photo agency CROPIX.

He has received numerous photography awards, and his body of work encompasses a wide range of subjects — from war and documentary photography to portraits and scenes of everyday contemporary life. His photographs are distinguished by a strong sense of timing, atmosphere, and human presence.

A multiple award winner at the Croatian Press Photography competition, he is particularly recognized for his award-winning photograph Everyday Life (Svakodnevni život) from 2013.
Throughout his career, he has presented his work through several solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions and photographic projects across Croatia.

His photographic work continues to feature prominently in gallery, media, and documentary projects, and is recognized for its strong photojournalistic expression, instinct for capturing the decisive moment, and a humanistic approach to portraiture and everyday life.