The first national holiday in Kamnik, October 29, 1918

The photograph on the card, taken by Kamnik professional photographer Franc Aparnik, shows famous Kamnik’ citizens who were photographed in national costumes on the occasion of the proclamation of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs on October 29, 1918, on the main square in Kamnik. From the end of the 19th century onwards, Kamnik’ citizens, as well as elsewhere, dressed in a “Slovenian national costume” in honour of church and national holidays, as a sign of Slovenian affiliation.

Franc Aparnik (1872-1954) was granted permission to practice photographic crafts on May 8, 1895. In Maister Street has opened its first “photographic studio”. At the end of 1909, he and his wife Justina, whom they married on October 24, 1904, bought the Prašnikar house with farm buildings and a garden on Šutna and built a photographic studio there.

Until 1945, Aparnik (first Franc, then his son Stane) was the only photographer in Kamnik. The Aparnik Atelier has been in Kamnik for over half a century, from 1895 to 1953, when he abandoned her due to age and illness. Franc Aparnik’s photographs date from 1895 to the early 1950s. Aparnik was extremely broad in its motivation and type of products, “nothing” happened without Aparnik taking photographs and thus documenting.