Kristi­jan Smok inter­view by Marko Zubak

08 / 10 / 2026 / Interview

Kiki, what’s wrong with your knee?

Ah, just a total dum­bass move!

We’ve had a boat for a while, and I’d been think­ing about get­ting a wake­board. I rode one about 15 years ago, on a cable sys­tem, and I remem­ber hav­ing a great time.

The first day went really well. After a few attempts at get­ting up, the feel­ing of rid­ing came back as if those 15 years had nev­er happened. A few days later, on my second ses­sion, we star­ted at around 8 – 10 miles per hour, and after I sug­ges­ted speed­ing things up, we got to about 15.

I was cas­u­ally carving left and right when I decided to try my first Ollie Over the Boat’s Wake. I did­n’t land smoothly, the nose of the board caught the sur­face of the water, and I got abso­lutely slammed.

I imme­di­ately felt intense pain and numb­ness on the right side of my face, like I’d just been slapped by the world cham­pi­on of slap­ping — only with a hand half a square metre in size. Soon I real­ized my knee and ribs were hurt­ing too. After sig­nal­ing to the guys that I was okay, we took the wake­board off, and I got back on the boat.

The blood in my mouth was the res­ult of tear­ing the frenu­lum between my upper lip and gums. Later, I star­ted feel­ing slightly sick and real­ised that the crash had actu­ally been pretty serious.

That day and the fol­low­ing one, my knee star­ted lock­ing at around a 30-degree angle, and I couldn’t fully straight­en it. A few days later, an exam­in­a­tion showed a medi­al col­lat­er­al lig­a­ment injury to my left knee.

I had an MRI to see if there was any addi­tion­al dam­age. I’m now wait­ing for the res­ults and for the doctor’s feedback.

You’ve been com­ing to Vladi­mir for ages — in fact, I think you’ve been here almost as long as I have. Your last exhib­i­tion at Vladi­mir was a long time ago, at the old DIY Badel. What has changed, and what has stayed the same? Do you think Vladi­mir is sail­ing safe waters, without the risk of tak­ing on too many passengers?

Actu­ally, I’ve been com­ing to Fažana even before Vladi­mir Film Fest­iv­al exis­ted. Before the Fest­iv­al, there was the May Day Skat­ing Con­test in the skate­park of the loc­al ele­ment­ary school play­ground. It was way too good — the entire Croa­tian skate scene ral­lied around that contest.

I had an exhib­i­tion at the old DIY Badel skate­park, and it was at the very first Fest­iv­al that I shot a series of pho­to­graphs that later became a fan­zine. A lot has changed since then. I have to admit that parts of that peri­od are a bit blurred, because back then we used to party until sun­rise, hahah.

I remem­ber that back in those days, the only Fest­iv­al loc­a­tion was Fažana itself. Nikola’s dad used to grill sardines for every­one, while we  watch film premi­eres on a small screen in front of the bar. It was pure magic, some­thing very much like a big fam­ily gath­er­ing. The Fest­iv­al grew big­ger over the years, but that feel­ing, at least for me, has remained unchanged.

I became aware of that only last year, when you sug­ges­ted that every­one who had been part of the fest­iv­al in any way dur­ing those 16 years make a short selfie video. I still get goose­bumps when I think of that video.

That fam­ily is no longer just loc­al — it has become glob­al. I recog­nize the same love for the Fest­iv­al in people liv­ing on oth­er con­tin­ents. That’s when I real­ise that, des­pite everything that has changed, the Fest­iv­al core has remained the same. Vladi­mir Film Fest­iv­al will live on for as long as you and the whole team have the will to keep cre­at­ing it. One day, it will come to its end, like everything else. What will remain will be the memory of one unique, one-of-a-kind family.

It was some time ago that you decided to ded­ic­ate your­self to pho­to­graphy. What brought you to the decision to focus com­pletely on street pho­to­graphy, and are you man­aging to make it work?

I’ve been into pho­to­graphy for 26 years, and I haven’t stopped shoot­ing pho­tos since then. It was fif­teen years ago that I did some­thing which I dared to repeat — I quit my job and tried to make a liv­ing from pho­to­graphy. The first time around, I man­aged to sup­port myself with pho­to­graphy for almost two years. Then things star­ted going down­hill, so I went back to res­tor­a­tion of build­ings, which is my profession.

This time, I’ve been try­ing for a year and a half already, but in an even more dif­fi­cult area of pho­to­graphy which is street pho­to­graphy. I’m try­ing to make a liv­ing by teach­ing it to oth­ers. There has been some mild interest, so I think I’ll be forced to return to my pro­fes­sion once again.

I could make a pretty decent liv­ing from pho­to­graphy if I shot wed­dings and stuff like that, but some­how that’s not my pri­or­ity. I feel that would only take me fur­ther away from the love I have for the pho­to­graphy itself.

You’ve also star­ted trav­el­ling to oth­er con­tin­ents, wheth­er in your private arrange­ment or by invit­a­tion. Is there some­thing from those travels you would like to single, and which exper­i­ences would you like to share as most exciting?

Uh, the last two years have been crazy, actu­ally, they were prob­ably the cra­zi­est peri­od of my life. It was really just like a dream. For the first time in my life, I star­ted attend­ing work­shops and mas­ter­classes of street pho­to­graphy led by mas­ters like Matt Stu­art and Greg Moa — one was in Venice, the oth­er in Seoul.

That opened up a com­pletely new per­spect­ive on things (TN: the street and street pho­to­graphy), and encour­aged me to keep explor­ing my own skills on the streets of Morocco, the US, Italy, Eng­land, France and the Balkans.

I remem­ber my first trip to Morocco. You read, do your research, watch videos on social media, and every­one keeps say­ing that it’s almost impossible to make street pho­to­graphy there. I was near can­cel­ling my trip. But I went any­way. For the first few days, there was this con­stant sense of fear dur­ing shoot­ing ses­sions, but than I real­ised it really wasn’t as nearly as dif­fi­cult as announced. This year, when I went there for the second time, I com­pletely sur­rendered to the exper­i­ence. I pho­to­graphed freely and undis­turbedly, and con­nec­ted with the loc­als eas­ily. It really felt like home.

New York, on the oth­er hand, was pure exhil­ar­a­tion. We grew up on Amer­ic­an movies, skate­board­ing, music videos and that whole sub­cul­ture we were try­ing to „plant“ in our own coun­try. And then you find your­self stand­ing right in the middle of that city — everything was real, but yet com­pletely unreal.

The cars, the people, the build­ings, the streets, and the details — I was com­pletely absorbed. For the first few days, I was actu­ally more inter­ested in the detail than in clas­sic street photography.

Then I star­ted focus­ing more on people and work­ing on a story. I became aware of the dif­fer­ences between New York and Europe or Africa, as well as the city’s cer­tain sim­il­ar­it­ies to South Korea. The sky­scrapers block out the sun, the city emits a cold vibe, while, on the oth­er side, con­sumer­ism makes it incred­ibly alive.

All these travels have raised ques­tions about the dif­fer­ences between people, cul­tures and soci­et­ies. Why is the West so often so grey, while the East and the South brim with col­our? Why is Europe some­where in between? And how is it pos­sible that in some parts of the world people seem to care less about each oth­er, while in oth­er dis­play a com­pletely oppos­ite behaviour?

Those are the ques­tions that, along­side pho­to­graphy, have become the most import­ant out­come of all those jour­neys for me.

How much time do you spend on the streets each month? Have you ever thought about devot­ing that time to some­thing more useful?

Hahaha, some­thing more use­ful? You are try­ing to pro­voke me with bold ques­tions, aren’t you?…

On aver­age, I spend three to four days a week shoot­ing on the streets, some­times even more, mostly around six hours a day. When I’m trav­el­ling, though, it’s a com­pletely dif­fer­ent story: I’m get­ting up early, around six or sev­en in the morn­ing, and get­ting home around ten in the even­ing, every day.

When I’m in Zagreb, I shoot less because I have a lot of oth­er things going on.

How much do you skate dur­ing the year? Would you call street pho­to­graphy your second love? How did you man­age to give up skate­board­ing so eas­ily? And now there’s wake­board­ing too…

Uh, I hardly skate­board any­more. Almost nev­er. I cruise around a bit at Šte­fka when I’m home, or here in Fažana, at the new skate­park and the DIY spot.

The change happened quite nat­ur­ally. More than 20 years ago, I star­ted pho­to­graph­ing skate­board­ing, and some­how I began to feel ful­filled. A good photo felt like land­ing a good trick.

Then the SC Pool happened, and I star­ted skate­board­ing reg­u­larly again along with pho­to­graph­ing. At that time, I fully engaged in both skat­ing and pho­to­graphy. As more and more for­eign­ers star­ted attend­ing the SC Pool, I star­ted pho­to­graph­ing more and rode less.

Then, in 2012, the SC Pool was demol­ished, the crew fell apart, and we were all at a turn­ing point in our lives. People got jobs, I gradu­ated from the Academy and star­ted trav­el­ling for work. Basic­ally, it was just me and my cam­era, and I star­ted pho­to­graph­ing the streets I knew best.

That’s when the trans­form­a­tion in my pho­to­graphy happened.

And the wake­board­ing… it’s the res­ult of a massive bore­dom and the fact that we own a boat. It’s totally stu­pid, I have abso­lutely no desire to talk about it, hahahahah…

Do you feel con­strained in Zagreb when it comes to inspir­a­tion? Do you feel the need to take longer trips abroad?

I could write essays about that, but let me try to keep it as short as possible.

Zagreb is my city, and I know all its corners. I’ve been skat­ing at Mimara and all over the city since 1997. I know the streets and the rules of the street. Zagreb is my home, and it’s genu­inely dif­fi­cult to pho­to­graph in a place where everything is known and familiar.

I always give one very simple example: a rub­bish bin. In Zagreb, it’s just a rub­bish bin to me. But when in Lon­don or Sara­jevo, that same rub­bish bin sud­denly has a visu­al sig­ni­fic­ance. It has a dif­fer­ent shape, a dif­fer­ent col­our, a dif­fer­ent tex­ture, and I look at it through the eyes of a stranger. So I tried to be a stranger in my own city: that was the only way I could per­ceive those small details as visu­al elements.

I think that the black-and-white pho­to­graphy suits Zagreb more than my col­our pho­to­graphy. Zagreb is quite a cold city; its col­our is blue, which is a cold col­our in itself. The only part of the city teem­ing with people is down­town, and that’s exactly the kind of place that increases the chance of shoot­ing my kind of photos.

Matt Stu­art once said, “Fuck a city with few­er than five mil­lion people.” At first I thought, what a char­ac­ter. But I get it now. In smal­ler places, you some­how end up wast­ing a lot of time.

In Zagreb, I maybe have a chance of shoot­ing two or three decent pho­tos in an entire year, where­as on travels I man­age to do that in just ten days.

Which coun­tries inspire you? Or do you prefer inspir­ing indi­vidu­al cit­ies (while the rest of the coun­try might be total crap)?

That’s dif­fi­cult for me to say because I’m con­stantly drawn to so many dif­fer­ent things. I’d love to go to India because of the col­ours. I’d love to travel around the Balkans because it is a part of the world that I know well, at least to some extent because it is so sur­real in its con­trast with everything else. I’d also like to travel through Morocco.

Do you enjoy exhib­it­ing your art or do you find exhib­i­tions to be an unavoid­able „part of the busi­ness“ that has to be done if you want to make a name on the scene?

Yes, I really enjoy exhib­it­ing. But I con­sider myself a ded­ic­ated work­er, and I approach pho­to­graphy in the same way. Some of the work related to gal­ler­ies and gal­lery activ­it­ies requires a great deal of per­son­al involve­ment, some­thing I wasn’t fully aware of until this year.

Not long ago I star­ted sub­mit­ting applic­a­tions to gal­lery open calls.  We’ll see how that goes. Until now, I had usu­ally been invited to exhib­it so my per­son­al engage­ment was nev­er needed.

Do you have a goal or some kind of plan for your work and career devel­op­ment, or do you trust your feel­ings and go with your gut, ready to accept return­ing to a reg­u­lar job at any moment?

As you know, the biggest battle is the per­son­al battle with one­self. I have some goals I’d like to see real­ized, but I am also aware we live in Croa­tia, a land where it’s very dif­fi­cult to make a liv­ing from art, and work is gen­er­ally undervalued.

I’d like to exhib­it my work as much as pos­sible, to teach people and pass on what I’ve learned, travel as much as I can and, ulti­mately, write a few books.

You know, pho­to­graphy isn’t just a caprice. It’s my life pro­ject and my life companion.

Is there some rare scene, some seem­ingly impossible situ­ation or com­pos­i­tion — but still with­in the realm of real­ity — that you are wait­ing for and secretly hop­ing you’ll stumble across one day?

I hope for it every day. That’s why I try to shoot pho­tos as much as pos­sible: in order to sharpen my craft and train my eye so I’m ready when that moment comes. The street is unpre­dict­able: you can’t ima­gine all the things that can hap­pen out there.

At the same time, you need to keep an open mind and a clear head every time you go out, so you would be able to recog­nise that spe­cial some­thing when it catches your atten­tion. Some­times you walk around all day and see abso­lutely noth­ing. And some­times you see miracles.

In the end, it all comes down to you.

Is there a fantasy ele­ment in street pho­to­graphy? A concept that resembles that of chas­ing spe­cif­ic situ­ations, like Eclipse Chas­ing, Waves, or Swim­ming across the Cook Strait? If there is, is there a name for it the way there are names for tricks in skateboarding?

Life is a fantasy, hahahaha… Big gath­er­ings like protests, nation­al cel­eb­ra­tions and the like give one a bet­ter chance of find­ing inter­est­ing ges­tures, strange inter­ac­tions, and people com­pletely caught up in the moment. But no, I don’t think there’s really a name for it, at least not in the way there is in skateboarding.

Is it fun to shoot close ups as it is excit­ing to skate in pro­hib­ited areas?

I’ve been doing street pho­to­graphy for quite a long now, so I got used to doing it. I remem­ber that in the begin­ning shoot­ing pho­tos was genu­inely excit­ing and scary — like tres­passing on Sundays to skate on some private prop­erty while the secur­ity guard is asleep.

I don’t shoot so much close-ups any more. Today I am more inter­ested in build­ing a story with­in the frame. I care about a good com­pos­i­tion: I think it’s import­ant, as are all the little details that form the com­pos­i­tion, if I can make them work togeth­er. Close-up pho­to­graphy requires a very strong char­ac­ter por­trayed; someone intriguing enough to inspire a good photography.

Same ques­tion, but from a dif­fer­ent angle: as an old-school skater, would you have under­stand­ing for people who con­sider parts of your house or prop­erty to be a great place to skate? Can being a street pho­to­graph­er make you less sens­it­ive to the idea of you or your fam­ily being pho­to­graphed dur­ing a less-than-flat­ter­ing intim­ate moment and exposed to the pub­lic view?

I would always sup­port skat­ing, even if it was tak­ing place on my own prop­erty. In fact, I would prob­ably be the one pho­to­graph­ing the whole thing — from people to tricks. I would even provide lem­on­ade, beer and lights if it was a night skating.

The situ­ation is dif­fer­ent when it comes to pho­to­graph­ing people on the street. Gen­er­ally speak­ing, you’re allowed to take a pic­ture of whatever there is in a pub­lic space unless there’s a sign pro­hib­it­ing it, the rules dif­fer­ring between countries.

Hon­estly, cell phones are what con­cerns me more. These days they have cam­er­as with incred­ibly good res­ol­u­tion, they are incon­spicu­ous, and they can be put to any use. Per­sons car­ry­ing an actu­al cam­era are prob­ably more likely to know how to use it and, at the end of the day, have inves­ted their time and money into learn­ing the „How to.“

If I caught a pho­to­graph­er tak­ing pho­tos of me and my fam­ily, I would demand to see them. If I thought they were good and were backed up by a good explan­a­tion, I would­n’t see any harm in that and I would even ask if it would be pos­sible to have a copy.

Just as there are memor­ies of good skate­board tricks, that can keep you warm for years, are there such dear long-last­ing memor­ies in pho­to­graphy? Is a photo a mere remind­er that can not grant you the same feel­ing you get from land­ing a trick?

Yes, there are.

There are a few pho­tos that are very close to my heart. Some are because of the tech­nic­al aspect involved in their mak­ing, some are because of the spe­cif­ic loc­a­tion or the dif­fi­culties in cap­tur­ing the moment, and some are simply because I love them. A fam­ily photo, for example, has none of the qual­it­ies lis­ted. It is a pure feel­ing of love for the dearest people.

To fin­ish, pick a cam­era, name a city, a time of day, favour­ite col­ours, the prot­ag­on­ists — and describe what is hap­pen­ing.

Leica Q3. Hadra, Morocco. A live­stock mar­ket. Morn­ing, around nine o’clock. Muted, sandy col­ours. Ber­ber people selling live­stock. The scene is filled with smoke from the grills. It smells of burnt anim­al hair. It’s unbear­able. Draper­ies block out the sun, but rays of sun­light cut through the thick smoke like on a film set.

I stop… I wait… I feel sick… It’s like a scene from a dream. I’ve waited for this moment.

There are mar­ket stalls both left and right. On the right, there’s a muted ter­ra­cotta-col­oured robe on a hooded fig­ure. Behind it, there’s a dark brown robe and a per­son wear­ing a straw hat. A per­son in a blue robe and a red hat enters the frame from the left. Anoth­er per­son enters from the right, and anoth­er one fol­lows the per­son in blue.

I place the per­son enter­ing from the right with­in the frame in such a pos­i­tion as to make her vis­ible against the sky and to bring her into focus.

Pure sat­is­fac­tion!