Lucie Photo Book Prize 2025

In 1990, Verner Soler, born in the Swiss village of Vrin, in the Canton of Grisons, and educated as a primary school teacher, traveled to Los Angeles. His intended six-month stay turned into thirty years and counting. He studied photography and creative advertising in California, married and raised a child, and became a Creative Director with Saatchi & Saatchi in Los Angeles, where he leads campaigns for major global brands such as Toyota. His native alpine village of 250 inhabitants could not be more different from the metropolis of 3.8 million that has become his new home. Against the odds, Soler has tried for more than three decades to maintain a connection to the place and the people he left behind.

Vrin: Home Through an Emigrant’s Lens presents Soler’s intimate exploration of an emigrant’s emotions when confronted with the accelerated changes in the village and its people, which he experiences as if captured in a time-lapse. His authentic, powerful images exude an uninhibited, candid reality. At the same time, they are full of meaning and longing. Combined with long narrative captions, they invite viewers to experience this place of power for themselves.

By Verner Soler, book design by Dominik Richard Kurmann and Ramun Spescha. 

Published in cooperation with Chasa Editura Rumantscha.