Photographic eye with thousands of followers

Vid Ponikvar is important link of Tour of Slovenia for more than a decade. Vid is now in early forties and it’s hard to imagine him without a camera in his hands of the big smile on his face. I know him for a long time, but it was only recently when I discovered the “secret” of both – camera & the bag of lenses, and his smile. He’s photographer with his hearth and soul, but at the same time never to be stomatologist. Similar like his classmate Jure Golčer that also left his education on side and followed his passion.

“I became familiar with the photography as 23-years old student of stomatology – when I got my first child and I wanted to take pictures of him. So I bought my first Canon EOS 50E and the attached instructions were my first source of photographic education,” says Vid with a smile on his face. Today, 18 years later there is no dilemma for Vid Ponikvar and he says proudly: “There is nothing else – photography is my life!”

Vid is owner of the photo agency Sportida that offers its services in various fields, but since the beginning he liked portraits and people above all. With pictures he can tell most about them – without saying a word. He was always appealed by that moment in which you catch a person through the right light, shadow, color, angle. “Sports photography is not personal experience,” says Vid, but his work shows that he can capture emotions also in sports photography – a proof is his work from the recent Tour of Slovenia that is admired around the world.

“I’ve been covering Tour of Slovenia for a decade, from the time when a group of journalists and photographers was formed and offered their services to newspaper Delo, but we’re refused. So I started to work for Siol and this is how my story on this traditional cycling event started,” explains Vid. He was working on different project since then, including on the cycling website Bicikel.com, but when he served at the time obligatory army service he got familiar with different sports and meet many of the future top athletes. So he became a sports photographer.

Vid started his career on Tour of Slovenia as the photographer on the motorcycle. “In my first year on Tour of Slovenia I got a task to do report about the ‘race inside the race’ – from the motorcycle. Challenge was great, but so was the stress,” remembers Vid those days. In the years that followed he learned to move around in the peloton, when to go to the finish line and how to capture best action from the race and the landscape around it. Task is far from easy! “You have to do all of this without putting anybody else of yourself in danger, which is never easy on the motorcycle. At the same time I had a chance and a privilege to actually know Slovenia and its unusual and beautiful places, but also myself. I became more patient, have bigger understanding for the events around me and I know how to predict a situation and prepare myself for it,” says Vid. And don’t forget that this kind of work means work in every weather – with everything from heavy rain to extreme heat.

All sorts of situations happen on the races like this, but Vid handles everything with a smile on his face. He even had positive attitude on the stage to Rogla on this year’s Slovenian tour, when marshal didn’t allow him to go to the finish area. He went off the motorcycle about 200 meters from the finish line – and started running with all of his gear. On the end he took a shot of the stage winners from their back and that was one of the best images from the race. He’s the only one with that moment in the photo – and that is priceless.

Photography is a hard work and not just what you see on the races. Vid takes around 300 thousand photos each year, which means he already did millions of photos in his professional career. But photos also need editing, captions and storage, which is difficult and hard work. This is why photographers are usually the last people in the press office… There is not much energy left after all of that. “Yeah… if there is any energy left. For example the energy to celebrate your birthday that I have on 18^th June and I don’t celebrate it for a decade. Tour of Slovenia is simply more important,” says Vid.

Ivanka Mihelčič

Tour of Slovenia report on Siol.net, with selection of Vid's best photos

Sportida.com