Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

In the last day before we start our journey back to the Netherlands, I went in a huge snow storm, and with last roll in my camera to take some snowy shots. I used a roll completely, but I will be no surprised if nothing will be looking good. In heavy snow it is quite difficult to make any shots. In a next week I am going on short business trip to Stockholm again. I have a lot of rolls to developed. Again I have created quite a big backlog. I need to short it back and make things more transparent and clean.
I am glad we visit all the places and saw a lot of people. It brings to my thought different dimension and I am finding quite a joy in traveling and seeing places, which I didn't have before.

We are back from our Christmas trip through Czech and Slovak Republic as well as Poland. I am planning soon to develop some rolls. Even I have only few days free and than I am heading to Stockholm for three days.

I didn't, unfortunately, have any time for developing even a single roll. I am packed now again and today afternoon flying to Stockholm. Hopefully after I am back, things will get a bit more quiet. I need to organize things from last few weeks, develop about 15 rolls and do some printing.
My friend R. had some ideas how to increase sales of my work. We should talk about it a bit more. And all and all, I still need to learn a lot, don't I?

My second complete day in Stockholm. At Tuesday I arrived almost at midnight and was so tired that I just drop to the bed. Until today lunch time I didn't make any shot. First I was always out when was a dark and second I didn't feel like. Yesterday evening I visited my favorite Gallery Kontrast. I alway like to visit it. They have very often new expositions and most of the time very nice work could be seen there.
Today after lunch I went to walk around company buildings. I wanted to see after almost one year again the snowy amphitheater. And I wasn't disappointed! Kids made two snow mans there and I used one roll to try to catch it, the best I could. I would use more but I had only one roll with me :-)

I am back home and collecting energy to get into developing rolls which are waiting me over here. I hope I can make up some kind of plan and keep it to make work progressing. If that happen you will also notice, finally, some new photos published here.

I made break-through and developed first roll today. It is exposed in August on a beach of Bretagne in France is the one from my series of early morning shot of fisher-mans. You can read more about it in my journal from that time.

The roll turn out to be quite disappointment. It was early morning and with rangefinder I didn't managed to focus properly. It is a pity. So most of the roll is nothing.
I am preparing for Saturday again. Doing some more prints and maybe I will develop some roll Thursday or Friday if I am ready with printing.

Lately I had very nice discussion with R. about writing text and combine them with photographs. He can always create such a nice small stories. Full of mood and feelings. When I read them, I am always very inspired. All of them are in Slovak language so I can't really post them here. Maybe on Slovak version of this page, I will do. Later, when he agree and I'll make some nice pictures based on them. I really like that idea.

Just finishing last, the 9th print for tomorrow. I decided to pick up my old negatives from 1996 where I did one week workshop with Andrej Ban. It was about railways. And as far as I know tomorrow it will be about railways again :-)

I developed next roll of Neopan 400 this time in Aculux 2 diluted to 1:14. Aculux 2 becomes my developer of choice. After experience of previous film developed in 1:9, which turns out to be overdeveloped, I try 1:14 with same time 8:30. I am agitating by inversion only once per minute, except starting 30sec (when I keep inverting), and that wasn't enough for 1:14 dilution. Film seems to have quite low contrast. Next time I will do 2-3 inversions per minute.

Just scanning roll developed yesterday some nice shots there. Will try to get them on-line as soon as I'll get some time.
I developed next roll in 1:14 Aculux 2 for 8:00 min (20C) agitation every minute 2-3 times for about 8-10 sec. It is hanging now and it looks OK. Can't say right now if contrast was increased, but definitely negative is not as dense as when I developed using 1:9.
I am just wondering why are times published by Paterson so off? Are they using so much different way of developing films? Are exposure so much off?

Maybe you wondering why I am not recently adding new pictures. Don't I have any? Well I have quite a lot of new photographs. Problem is somewhere else. From the time I had start using IMatch (great soft btw) I am dreaming to integrate updating my web from this software right a way. My own made soft for that is using XML-RPC and I just love to connect those two together and sent pictures from IMatch to my server using XML-RPC. Well and that is the reason. I am not done with that yet.
I did update a little my pages. Lower number of thumbnails to six per page and other small changes.

From today is my web site only in English language. For most of you it could be surprise. You ask, where was the other language? Well it was there, for all those years back to 1997 these pages were in English and Slovak language. You could switch it by changing language preferences in your browser.
It was too much for me to keep all text in both languages, and than, the Slovak version suffers, as the English one gets updated almost every second day.
I believe this change will be only for good.

I am in Stockholm again. already from Monday, but I am quite busy so no time to write anything. Unfortunately I wasn't sure how long I am going to stay here so I didn't take any photo stuff except my camera. Before I travel here, I thought I will have some time to develop some rolls, but I gave up that. I better do it home and the right way.
It is nice and snowy here. Feels like real winter. Not very cold. I am all day in company so I can see outside world only in dark and that makes taking pictures little bit difficult. But I will see, maybe I'll have some time for it as well.

Busy, busy. Today was a first day I took my camera with me. All other days was always dark when I could. Today I went with T. to small city Trosa. The weather was very bad, cloudy, rainy and quite windy. This city is more summer one like winter. So a lot of things were closed, but nice small river which goes through it, together with nice color houses is still giving us nice feelings and atmosfere of Sweden countryside.
We walked into small café to warm up and get some warm drinks and than we continue by side of the river. In such a weather I do not expect to get great shots, but anyway I did quite of them. Mostly shots without people, as there were not so many of them either :-) I tried to catch that feeling of small village in cold winter. Something I still have in my mind after reading "Doctor Zivago" by B.Pasternak early this week.

Sunday, I took it easy. I wanted to look on the places I liked last year in Stockholm. So after breakfast I went to Stockholm island named Södermalm. Last year I liked placed around Sofia church there. It was later in march and people went on the streets when Sun jumped a little out, from behind a clouds.
This year I did similar walk over it as last year. Just maybe I have chosen little different streets. mostly I again trying to catch feeling I have from B.Pasternak book. When I arrived close to Sofia church I find again that interesting café, were morning you can find young couples with very small children taking their brunch. I went in and stays for almost two hours. Great time. I wrote my feelings about it on paper. I never did that but somehow I felt good there and I wrote over five pages. One things about this place. I always saw it Sunday morning and it was great. Today went there once more in the evening and feeling was quite different, so different that I moved out and choose different place for my dinner. Anyhow if ever I will be back in Stockholm Sunday morning, I will be here for my breakfast!

Than I walked further, until I reach Sofia Church. And there were people, mostly kids sliding on snow. It was a lot of fun and I run out of the film rolls very soon. Actually too soon for what I would like to take picture of. So seven rolls was not enough for this day.

I am having discussion with Dave Beckerman (btw: great photographs from New York), about web design and how that is effecting, among the other things, the way search engines see and index web site. I have found that Google, for example see only about 5% of my pages. This is thanks to dynamically generating pages which are passing arguments in URL. Google see only first page of my journal and only first pages from each gallery. No photo page is indexed and none of further gallery pages. This strikes me and I am looking for a way to improve this.
Maybe you know what is the trick, let me know!

So now I know what to do, A.K. has a great idea (once more thank you a lot) to use kind of fixed script and faked path approach. I like that a lot, now only problem is if I am going to change all site I only need to find a decent way to redirect all links to new ones. But anyway not that many people where linking directly to images or journal. so maybe that is not a big deal.
Today I am leaving Stockholm and than I will start working on that. Hopefully soon together with new pictures! I am curious as probably you are. So please watch out that will be load of pictures in coming weeks :-)

I just developed two new rolls. Both Fuji Neopan 400 in Paterson Auculux 2 diluted 1:14. I knew those rolls are little overexposed so I did 9:00 with minimal agitation. I did only 1x each 60sec. Negatives turns out not so dense and with low contrast, all as expected. Let see tomorrow how they will scan. Both contains shots from France. That was a time when I woke up early to see some fisher mans going on the see, in August last year...

Yesterday I made new web version (the one making my web indexable by search engines) running at my home copy of PiskoFtak. Looks very good. I was really surprised how easy it was to change it.
Only menu structure is bit damaged now. I need to take a little different approach, it was build up dynamically, now I need to drive it differently, maybe I go for XML description. This could allow me to make automatic site map as well.
Next step will be making upload of new pictures finally working directly from IMatch.

Today I made new menu system based on XML definition. It is working nicely on my home copy of PiskoFtak. Soon I will be finished with last part, which is better navigation through my journal on separate page. I hope, you will all like it and I hope Google will like it too!
This playing with site is nice, time consuming thing. I believe it will bring me something back. Thanks to not putting new photographs on page, number of hits to my site drops dramatically. This is really interesting phenomenon to observe. Reaction of the Internet on one web page construction, updates and contents.

Time is flying! My home copy of PiskoFtak is not completely finished, yet. I have now Journal running in separate page and only adding new way of navigating. When that is done I will move it to the Inet.
In a mean time I developed next two rolls from France last year. Now I know how to get them so results are much better, but what I have noticed is that films really need to be developed as soon as possible especially the ones which are show in very low light conditions. One can see how they are effected already after six month.

Today I finished at three o'clock morning. But I have functioning archive and calendar for browsing my journal. This is still on my home copy of PiskoFtak.
But there is only small step to go, to make a front page! After this new PiskoFtak will be published on-line. I hope it will be very soon (today?). Let's see.

As you can see new improved and hopefully more Google friendly web design is in place now. I believe it has still few things to improve and I would appreciate your suggestions and comments. But I am quite satisfied and I am going now to focus on next two important items. One is direct publishing my pictures from IMatch and the second is developed rest of exposed rolls and select about four photographs for exhibition in April.

When I finished my web I went to sleep as I was quite tired from previous night. I only sen e-mail to Dave Beckerman as we were discussing few days ago issues about search engine friendly web design.
When I wake up today morning I had incredible useful e-mail from him in my mail box. Thank you very much Dave!

More and more my friends write me with suggestions, A.K. showed me how to extend background also below floating div. I had no idea how that can be done. Now is solved, nice!

Today is a beautiful day, unfortunately, I have to go to work. Quite cold -3C for this time, but very dry and clear. That's the weather I like.
I spent evening with coding script for IMatch and adjusting a little my XML-RPC server. I did important step, I am able to import complete photo DB from web into IMatch. Now the opposite way.

After I have changed cartridge in my Epson 890 I printed new picture. It was just a little test and photo was prepared already before. It turns out quite OK. It belongs to my, kind of, project I am try to work for few month. It is about childhood. I try to make series of photographs which will remind childhood, memories when you were young. It is rather challenging I must say, but I like it a lot. It is a little different way of working that that I did before. That time I just took pictures of things which I have found interesting. Now I have story in mind, feelings I like to create. I even sometime see exact pictures I like to make. This all was started by Caroline Schröder. The photographer which I have met few month ago. I am grateful for discussions with her and helping me to realised what I want and like in photography.

I have just received new issue of my favorite magazine Black & White Photography and I have found web site review of my friend from few years ago, Martin Klima.

Finally at the end of the day I am working on script for IMatch. And it is very productive and successful. I have all data from web updated in IMatch and now working on script for publishing from IMatch to the Inet.
This visual basic scripting language of IMatch giving me headache. I am just not use to this kind of language. I much more like C, C++, java. So things are not called here as I am use to and they are not at places I am looking to. When I get error from interpreter it takes my while to understand what does it mean. But slowly I am creating my scripts and slowly I am getting there.

More and more I feel troubled with things which they have very little to do with my goal, good photograph. I need to limit these things and focus on what is important. Sometimes is quite difficult and I can't easily prioritize. Hopefully after these scripts are running and I can update web again, I will have more time to invest into creating photographs.

Is the end of the day. My Imatch is backuping now. It is only few steps when you would be able to see new photographs on-line!

Today I woke up and find frozen morning with a little bit of snow. This is quite exceptional for The Netherlands. It reminds me a lot my childhood. How many time I was walking as a small boy to the school when was freezing and sharp snow flakes was falling into face? Or bright sharp sun trying to get into my eyes? I love it! When I have these feelings I know this is exactly what I like to capture in my Childhood project.

Yesterday I have almost finished script for IMatch to publish my black and white photographs to the Internet. I hope today I will come with first new photographs published directly from IMatch.

Saturday is close and I still didn't finalise my set of photographs for exhibition at the end of April. I like to have set of four or five photographs. I still have few rolls not developed and I do not feel like I really make my time to select. But isn't this always?

This was in France. We went into big shoping centre. While wondering around I saw this little girl in changing room. I can't resist. I really liked ligh there.

Yes yes!!! It is working! My first version of script for publishing photographs directly from IMatch using XML-RPC to my web site is working. Now it is easy, just select images in IMatch, assign them to gallery categories and click "put on web" and it is there.
So be prepared! New pictures are coming. First is there, next will come sooooooon!

Today when I went into work, I was shocked! About 7cm of snow everywhere! This didn't happen in The Netherlands for last five years! Radio reports 750km of traffic jams. 7cm and it is almost national catastrophe. Back in country of my origin, CzechSlovakia, this was, and is, nothing. Troubles starts from 40cm :-)
Anyway it is very nice, country is white and quieter.

This photograph was taken in Lesconil in Bretagne, France. I developed it in times of my experiments with different developer. I used Tetenal Emofin on Fuji Neopan 400. I love the results, it really completely underlines mood of that day. Under heavy clouds we went on wall which hide port from open Ocean.

I added next photograph. I like it very much very high contrast is completely describing the mood of that afternoon when we visited a port of Lasconil in Breatgne, France. We walked on wall which deliminates port from open Ocean. There were few fisher mans waiting for fish. I used this Tetenal Emofin developer only on two films. I do not know why I really like the result. Tonality and contrast is great. Grain is bigger, comparing with all others I used. As you maybe now now I settled down on Paterson Aculux 2.

Two freshly developed rolls are now hanging to dry. They contain shots from Slovakia, which I did at the end of the last year. There is about eight more to develop. I hope I can manage them in few next days.
Today I was presenting about twelve of my photographs with a theme childhood. In a exposition and the beginning of April I like to present about four or five photographs from this theme. I do not considered it closed as I still feel there is a lot of possible what I would like to catch. Even I feel there are some nice ones on undeveloped rolls from Slovakia and Sweden.
I only miss possibility to print bigger than 20x30. At least double or even 40x60 would be nice.
I have to order new developer I am running out of mine stock. My friend, will bring me Monday bunch of Fuji Neopan rolls.

I have some kind of problem with my scanner. When using vuescan it is not responding and vuescan reports Busy, for ever. It is very annoying. It start appearing from time I switch to WinXP. Previously with Win2k it was quite all right. I believe it has something to do with IRQ sharing and maybe with SCSI driver for its card under WinXP.
Anyway I developed next two rolls today and if everything will go good, maybe I menage next two afternoon. That would be record 6 rolls in two days.
When my scanner will be more productive again I will publish some new stuff in Last roll page.

It is evening and I really develop six rolls this weekend. Last one I did in Paterson FX-50 as I run out of my favorite Aculux 2 (I already already ordered next two liters). And now I know for sure FX-50 is not my choice. Negatives looks terribly undeveloped.
Well that's all for today.

Yesterday late in night, my scanner somehow starts working without hanging as much as for about seven stripes of six frames. Great! And it was even better because as it come to shots done in Slovakia in winter, particularly in place when I took shots of two girls playing game. Those photographs are great, really good, at least I think. I hope I will have some time and today evening I'll put some of them in last roll section.
I am glad twice as I had last 45ml of Aculux 2 so I did strange dilution 1:11 and kept time 12:00 min. And it turns out to be great combination! It so nice to see how work is going right. Comparing to it, my last usage of FX-50 was quite disaster. Now only I have to wait for new bottles of Aculux 2 to arrive. In a mean time I'll go with Ilford Ilfotec LC29 or Ilfotec S which I still have in storage.

Not always things which are planed turns out to reality. That happened to me yesterday. I wanted to develop new rolls, but I realise that even I have developer and I have bought new fixer I forgot to buy distillate water. Yes I am using that for diluting my developer. I like it because this way I am ensured that things stay as much the same as possible.
Than I planned to put new pictures on the Internet even create new gallery for my childhood project. But at 23:00 I was so tired after day at work that I just gave up, and good I did. I wasn't able to awake at normal time today morning anyway. I can't imagine if I would be awake longer. So it is for today, to buy distillate water and publish photos. Stay tuned :-)

Playing on street that was common when we were back in town. Different games come to fashion as they come into magazines we have read. Sometimes new kid come and bring something new. Most of the time these games used home made things as we have no much money for expensive toys.

We use to play games on the street. A lot of kids from all houses around where gathering every summer day and running up and down. Sometimes in small groups, other time together we played games. In summer we can still find ourself playing when was already dark. Grass was wet and starts to be cold.

And then in certain moment each of us heard voice of mother or father calling home.

France. Again just passing by, while looking for place to eat. I saw this passanger on a back seat. He didn't move.

I added two new pictures in Kids and Street gallery. And I filled up Last roll with pictures from on of the rolls with girls playing game. I would really appreciate your comments on this shots.
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This morning when I am sitting here and listening great music by Dezo Ursiny I have again kind of flash back feelings from my childhood. I do not know why but I have just remember cold afternoon, Sunday walking on place called 'bulvar' in my home town. Walking slowly in cold shady afternoon in direction of sweet shop. Maybe you do not know, but we had those sweet shops which were open also Sunday. That was a place where sometimes teen aged kids meet each other. And I saw myself walking there and meeting with my first girl Jana. Nice nostalgic feeling, where are all those times? What all those people do now? Do they also remember? I have I didn't take photographs of every moment, you never know which one will be remembered like this.

Two new rolls developed. I used Amaloco AM74 with Foma 200 Creative. I use AM74 as I run out of my favourite Paterson Aculux 2. I must say (only from looking on film strips after developing) that I have got there very nice landscape pictures of frozen meadows and river. I will scan them today and soon I will bring them on-line. I still see that Aculux 2 give more tonal range especially in shadow areas.
It is so nice to see after working with chemicals that you get nice results. I do not know how is it in digital world, do you feel also that moment of surprise when you look at your LCD? I doubt that. In conventional (analog) photo there is always delay between exposure and visible result, so you can enjoy the same moment twice :-)
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My scanner giving my hard time again, I spent two hours scanning and get only 14 shots scanned. I am tired now and will go to bad. Sorry folks it will be for tomorrow, I hope scanner will behave better.

Yesterday I didn't have a good day with my scanning. Sometimes it is working sometimes not. I will give it second chance today, that I hope we can see new landscape on-line. I am also planning to develop few more rolls this weekend. And thing which I like to try for longer is to print A2 size and see how it will holds.
I am getting very good feedback recently. Number of visits to my site is increasing. It is nice to have feedback, it inspires me and giving me energy to go on.

Finally I am finished with scanning. So you can find few new photographs, from cold winter in a nice village cold Lokca in part of Slovakia named Orava.

Do you still remember that smell of oil and temper colors you used in school? I love it!. We paint often on old paper which was supposed to be used for packing. On one side surface was very glossy and on other side soft. With that thick brush and mixing colors on piece of wooden or plastic.

And then when you come next day to school and whole class was full of that smell of drying temper colors. Our creation hanging on rope across one wall of a class. I was so proved when I was able to make something which my mama likes.

As I was walking in cold morning around village I have come to the small river. Next to it was a forest road and I went on it. Frozen snow dump my steps and I could come closer to river which was hidden and ice cover. On few places water gets above ice. One such a nice place is on this photograph. This shot is like painting, even drops of water flowing fast over the ice are now frozen in the air.

Today, after I wake up :-), I am going to pick up two bottles of Paterson Aculux 2 developer. It arrives extremely fast from UK. I made order Tuesday and Friday it was here. This is another great service by Speed Graphic. So for next rolls I will using it again. I really like this stuff. They call it also FX-44.
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When I was scanning those Foma 200 Creative I find out that one of them has scratches all over whole film. When I look back on the roll canister I find out that it has small piece of metal coming into entrance of film. Yes this was a first time such a thing happened. I hope I will have no more those problematic canisters.

After I received my Aculux 2 yesterday, I went on and developed four rolls today. Number of undeveloped ones is counting down. Three of them were shot in Slovakia and one is my last roll from my Voigtlander Bessa R2 which I am going to sell. If you interested drop me a message.
I already published one shot, Frozen water from the first roll. Few more will come soon.
I went today on small photo exhibition of local photo club to the next village. There was about 120 photographs exposed, mostly colors though few black and white. I liked work of Jan Walburg, nice clean compositions. A lot of shots were graphical exercises, nice on first look but boring after.

I have just print A2 sized print. I used four A4 papers with help of Picture Window Pro, software I am using for adjusting my photographs. It is drying now and I will bring it together tomorrow and place it on A2 under mat. Than I'll see how it holds and if the connections between A4 sheets are disturbing or not.

My attempt to print A2 print which is put together from four A3 prints, failed. It looks ok, so even printing with 180dpi is fine with my printer and inks, but taping four prints together doesn't look good. Whatever you do, you can always see the edges. So this is no way.
I ask on few mailing lists opinion about my last_roll set of two children playing game. I get a huge amount of response. Thank you all of you for it! It is nice to get a feedback. As it seams the most discussed photos are Pogy 6, Pogy 5 and Pogy 2.

I asked on few photography lists for opinion about which is the best shot on my last roll page. I also talk to few friends and gave the same question to few photographers I know. Question was to find which one they like the most and why. I knew from previous times I did something similar that it will bring more confusion than useful results, but I was curious as this time my question was more specific.
Dave Beckerman is recently writing about the confusion and way to obtain opinion about work in his journal. I must say I fully agree with him. This time I have got huge response couple of dozen e-mails, which indicates at least that people want to share their meaning. Also result was quite interesting, in a sense that most people choose same image. Most responses also contained reasoning behind their choice. What I have found, from this, is how much my view on my images and my reasons differs from views of other people. But as Dave is writing in his journal is better to have own way than somebody else way :-)
I must say that I am grateful for others opinion. At least I can see what do they consider interesting. And of course feedback is always good, positive or negative as far as it is constructive :-) No no I have quite good mood today even I am quite tired, but I am happy that so many people react. I didn't expect it.
As a next step I will prepare small page about my project and will place images with text there. That page will be than extended as I create new better images. One day when I feel that I covered what I wanted the way I planed and like I will close it and will start new project. I must say that I can thank enough Caroline Schröder for giving me this idea. Idea to focus on one theme and get maximum out of it. This brings me very natural way of taking a picture. Taking pictures with a theme idea and thought in mind. This makes it much more enjoyable as I do have a goal, target. I like it a lot! Thank you Caroline!

I have developed two rolls of Ilford Delta 400 in Aculux 2 1:9 for 9 min. It is different than my favorite Fuji Neopan 400. I did expose about 8 rolls in Stockholm about month ago and now is the time to developed them, So these first two are OK but I hope it can be better. I will shorten the time by 30sec and use constant inversion for first 30sec. I need to increase contrast.
Tomorrow is Friday and I had a plan to put again few new pictures. I will keep that plan!

There are few new pictures for you to enjoy. Today I am very very tired. I really do not understand what is going on. Is the end of working week. I need a rest.
Tomorrow I will try to go to local photo lab which is able to do big (up to A0) size prints on epson inkjet printers. I will try to do on A2 print and compare it with mine. My intention is to make A2 prints for exhibition if that would be possible.

When I was taking this shot I was hoping it will turn this way. Blured background with feeling of bring sunny day and very fragile frozen twigs in front.

On my walk around village I come to football field completely covered by snow. There was a such a strocng reflexion of Sun on cristall of frozen snow that you had difficulties to look into them. As a Sun was quite low, as is normal in winter there, long shadow of trees where projected on snow field.

Some can see this as just a snap photo. I was actually following the grand father, quite a long time, trying to make portrait which would cover also a little more a place where he is living. That beautifull environment full of nature, animals and old times. Maybe this is not the best, but still I like it. You would be suprised how all those animals understands and listen to this old man.

Today's day is not over yet and I already did quite a few things. Submit to the local photo lab for experimental A2 print my photo. They use A0 Epson printer and same Epson Archival Matt paper as I do. Test print should be ready Tuesday. The man in shop was very nice. We went in back of lab and he showed me machine and let me see different papers they have. We discuss a lot.
Next I developed two new rolls of Delta 400 exposed month ago in Stockholm. I have a plan to scan them later today and develop next two rolls today and four more tomorrow. This way I should be ready with Stockholm this week.
And last I put another two new photos on these pages. Both exposed in December last year. Great winter! They still have now almost two meters of snow. Must be beautiful but not very practical.

From the time I was a small boy I remember mostly smells, feelings. This picture brings me back to that time, but feeling which gave me sharp refelction on snow crystals. Also the feeling that some animal was leaving from grand father back yard house. I want to go and follow that animal, find out what was it. I want to be a small boy and be walking in half meter of snow on fields alone in bright Sun.

The other picture, named Charle's cat was exposed a year before this one in this agriculture backyard house. There is a lot of old machines inside and storage of things for summer work.

This weekend again six rolls developed. I finished with photographs exposed in Sweden. I still have some rolls there, but I do not think those are from Stockholm. Scanner is working flawlessly today. And I have a good mood. I made selection of photographs for exposition at beginning of April. Still not final set, but I am down to about fifteen.

Yesterday I have finished scanning of all my rolls. Now it only takes to think more and make final selection. Wednesday I will come to take a look in to the local lab how did they print my test print at A0 size. And if everything will be ok I will put them all my five (or seven) photographs to print. Than I can pickup them Saturday.
Anyway this week I will be quite busy with other things among the photography, but anyway I would like to develop few rolls which I still have in different films. I have some TMX, TMY, HP5+,... I hope I can finished them soon. And after exposition prints are done I can come back to photographing again :-)

I was today for a test print in the lab. They print it wrongly. I only realize it when I was back home and compare print with my own print. They didn't print it at 180dpi as I asked they just print A4 paper with resolution which would print whole image to A0 size which is max for they printer. That way print of course looks terrible grainy and unsharp. I payed 10 euro for this A4 test print. I am a bit disappointed as I multiple times asked please print it at prepared resolution do not sharpen and do not modified anything. I will call them and will come back again and try to ask for second test print with no charge. I will see if they agree.
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I printed yesterday two prints of photo I made month ago in Stockholm. Flying snow thing with two boys on it. Very strange picture as I was following movement of them the background get moved. But the result of move looks like drawing. So you can see this flying thing as photographed object on pencil or Charcoal drawn background. Nice effect. I promised to send these two prints to Sweden. I hope they will like it. Now only find a time to walk to post office :-)
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These are busy days. I wanted to write already couple of times, but always something came in it. I finally take a little break and watch a movie 'The end of Affair' based on book by Graham Greene. Such a nice slow mood movie. I was wondering, after it ends, that these days people doesn't have a time to think, maybe they even do not want to think. All is happening quite fast, like a stream of binary data. You only react, you do not think, you do not feel reasons consequences, meanings, don't you?

So I will be exposing five prints. Yesterday we were at exposition place and we planed who will have which place. I have got quite nice place and also arrange frames and all stuff. Except prints of course.
I am still bit faithing with local lab. I would love to have bigger prints than 20x30cm. Yesterday I was there as well and I had discussion with person operated the system there. He advice me to prepare print in 200dpi, because that is what machine is printing he says. Everything else is resized to get 200dpi. I am not sure if I want to make another test print for 10 euro, maybe I just prepare all prints and will hope in luck. In worst case I will print A4 prints myself. Yes that is what I am going to do. Will bring them CD tonight and will pick-up prints Wednesday. Saturday we doing installation in exposition hall.

Today morning I was missing my camera it was so nice foggy morning. That kind of low mist that you can see with difficulties in the same high as you but above you is a blue sky and moon with just rising Sun. Beautiful.
Tomorrow I will go pick up my six A2 sized prints from the lab. I am curious what they did with it.
Recently I am not writing very much. Last week I had very busy time at work and than we a re rebuilding bedroom home. New floor and all the stuff. So I am tired physically, which is what I like but it really needs some sleep to recover :-) Hopefully in one week I will have exhibition installation done and home will be everything in order and I will have some time to put new pictures. I had this wish to put every week some nice pictures on-line. I didn't keep it last week. Some today one extra picture. This is one of the first from set of photographs which I was doing in attempt to fit it into my childhood project.

This shot I did when I was doing shooting in child playgrounds in attempt to get some photographs which could fit into my childhood project. If you look at it better you will see caught movement in the background. To me it is like passing ghost :-) I like very much these kind of photos with hidden secret a little atmosphere. I like it also because it has nice tone and when I look at print here on my desk it really have some kind of mystery feeling.

I have 30x50cm prints home now. They are not any great. I mean they are also not any bad. The prints have little color cast to brown, but this cast is not on whole picture, only on some parts, looks like certain degree of black is printed by the printer as brownish. I need to take second look at them and than decide what to do.

I took a second look at big prints yesterday. It was at the evening so only big kitchen light, but still I am sure it is not wow! I believe these guys from lab they didn't try hard enough. But for those money they could. Prints are rather ok, only annoying think is that they for sure didn't use color profile embedded in picture. They use this Adobe Photoshop Elements, which I think, is for this kind of work totally useless.
Prints has a brownish cast on certain level of gray. And that is annoying, because if the whole picture is little brownish, well you can see it as toning, but this looks more like coloring.
Another think about prints is that they are much less in contrast, black is not really black and whole picture is little bit lighter than my prints. Now I really wish I bought A3 printer at the beginning.

Every morning I drive on my bike around small field of grass where black horse is kept. Few days ago he was on his knees and next day I saw him lying on the ground. Before that, for few month he looks pretty ok, running around fence when was cold weather or hiding inside small cabin. When I saw him lying there with closed eyes, I though, o man he is going to die.
Luckily yesterday he was back up again. And today he start eating grass around and looks really much better. I do not know what happen, maybe he was ill, or was it reaction on new horse which was add to the fence just few days before I saw him on the ground?

Six prints is installed. Yes six, at the end I put on the wall six prints, all which I had print at local lab. I must say, it looks quite OK, but you know how is it, one is never satisfied. So anyway, six prints is there I believe it looks well. So if you around Breda, in The Netherlands you are welcome to visit our small photo academy exhibition in exposition place of library from 5th of April until 30th of April. Official opening is 3th of April from 14:00 until 16:00. Among other people seven of us from photo academy year 2003/2004 is exposing about 50 prints. Some color but mostly black and white.
All prints I have there are part of my ongoing project childhood. I am preparing its on-line presentation here as well. It is far from finished, but it was what I was working for past few month and will do surely for few more. I still have ideas...

For a long time I was always trying to catch the right moment for picture of kids swinging. This one is so far my favorit. There is a slight problem with light going directly to lens from top middle. But I like that you can see the girl who is pushing and expression on faces of both.

Few new pictures I had add today. I would add more but I need to go into sleep now. I am so tired and especially with summer time shift which happened this Sunday I am bit shifted myself.
I feel I need to take camera again into work, feel like taking more pictures. Spring is really coming and morning light feels nice.

One day I came home after work in terrible rainy weather. I took a camera and I decide to take few shots around in this low light, grey, wet weather. I was thinking let's try to capture this wetness :-) And let see what Fuji Neopan 400 and Paterson Aculux 2 can do. When I went out covering camera from direct rain I did few shots and than saw three girls playing game. I saw they must be totally wet. And they were. I did more shots of them than this one, but most of them is not focus properly. I was shooting with almost open lens (2.0) and therefore it was quite difficult catch all the time moving girls.

I found this snowman build together with its friend on stage of summer amphitheater behind my colleagues office buildings in Stockholm. I was walking around after lunch and when I saw two alone snow-mans placed on stage with no viewers I felt sorry for them. So I took few pictures.

Do you remember changes I made on web site for Google? Maybe not, about six weeks ago I have changed internals of web site so search engines can index complete site and not be blocked by passing argument sin url for dynamic pages. From that moment page ranking of my web dropped terribly in Google. I do not know what actually happened, but that is true. On the other hand I am getting more and more hits from Google and from other search engines in last week. So maybe things are going to change.
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I am again working on little change on my web site. Preparing simplified and same menu system on all part of the web site.
I am also working on new menu item called Projects. It will contains photographs more tight to one subject together with article about the subject. It will be more like documentary projects.
I have also start writing articles how I am doing things about photography. How I develop, print and possibly how I actually taking photographs. I think this can be useful for somebody, as I am getting recently more and more emails with such a questions.

So there is a lot of to come. Just hang on a bit and we all (including me) will see how does it turn.

Tomorrow is opening of exposition. I am curious :-) Yesterday I print two prints, Snowman star and Hiding in a rainy day just to try them out. They both turned quite OK. I am planning to do more prints next week and send some out to see reactions.
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I have add my site to Black and White Photography web ring, in hope it will bring more traffic to my pages. At the moment it is not fully functional as my site wasn't confirmed yet. I will see how does it turn and consider a future than. I do not really like much colors of the links, but maybe I can modify it in future.
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I have just received my test print from S. done with UT2 on Epson 1290s printer. He was so kind he did for me print in cool, neutral, carbon and sepia tone. Details in prints and quality is the same as I am use to with UT1 on EAM paper. UT2 has advantage that scale of toning is bigger. I didn't see yet print on glossy paper with UT2. But I know now that when I run out of my UT1 bottles I will buy UT2 with CFS either for my Epson 890 or maybe for some future printer I buy. But I have to consider costs new Epson 1290s is now priced little over 400 euro and I really find that little bit too much for me. And that will gave me only print twice a size of my current Epson 890. Well, this is future, when it comes I will make decision.

Today is the D-day for me. My first photo exhibition in The Netherlands. As I mentioned elsewhere, I am exposing with other people, members of photo academy year 2003/2004. I am wondering how it will be. Opening is today at 14:00.

Yesterday, opening of exhibition went quite all right. I was expecting certain people who didn't come, but others who I wasn't sure come. And that was nice surprise.
I have god few advices yesterday about going to school and getting some kind of official paper declaring that I am professional photographer, or something in that sense. But after more consideration I am not sure if I want to go to school. You know I do not want to learn technique, style, history and what ever they teach there. I like to do photography and therefore I will probably go to different route.
I have also got advices about my pictures. The important information which came in from more people was that my images are nice and little mysterious, but they could be more. So advice was to add more mystery in pictures. This come from people who knows more of my work and they saw some images which were really mysterious and surprising. They like those and they advice me to go more that direction. Next was to put more sharper view and less quietness to my photographs. People find my images too calm.
When I think about it I must say that some of that I can see myself and it is good to hear it from outside.
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As you can see on top page I am part of web ring about black and white photography now. I will see if this will bring me some additional traffic and after while I will consider stay or leave in this group.

I have developed Ilford HP5+ in Aculux 2 for 11 minutes. I went for shortest time. That is disadvantage when you develop film long time after exposing it, than I do not remember what was the conditions under which film was exposed. If I knew it was dark rainy afternoon and some inside shots, I would go for longer time. As I wasn't sure I went for shortest. Film would be better is I developed longer. It is not bad, but could be better. I still have few different films (non Fuji Neopan 400) which I need to develop. It is a bit distracting as I want to get maximum from Neopan 400 in Aculux 2, but at least I have some examples. Between is also test shots I had made with Neopan 1600 exposed at 800.

When I was with T. walking in the Sweden city Trosa and looking for some place to eat in that cold wet day, I saw this two same small houses next to each other. It was still snowing more snow than water and even I was quite wet and mood less I find this really funny.

Time is flying, isn't it? I have few new orders for prints. After I open exhibition together with few friends I have got already second order for print.
I am also printing some stuff I didn't have time before and having very positive responses from people about exhibition and also about web. It is good feeling :-).
I am planning today develop some test rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600 exposed at 800 and 1000. I am wondering how it will be. The reason is that on my current Childhood project I like to do some night shots. I also will be ordering CFS system from MIS for my epson 890 with new UT2 inks. This will save me time with filling cartridges. I still have some UT1 ink and I am planning to use it all.

It is Friday again and I post new image named Before crash. You can read more about it on its page but I just have now envelop with two prints of them prepared to fly to Sweden. I hope they will enjoy it.
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The feedback from exhibition gets on power. I received five e-mails yesterday with very positive comments. And traffic on my pages increase a lot. Thank you all for your support.

When I saw this things sliding down there from Sofia church in Stockholm I coudn't believe. Two boys sitting in it were gaining incredible speed. After they come to jump they were catapulted over two meters in the air. Landing was fatal for the things which breaks down and one of the boys had some problems with breathing as he probably land very hard on his back. I was quite worried and with his mother we were helping him.

Long weekend includes Monday and I was busy with other things than photography. Mostly rebuilding garden :-) But anyhow, I did few prints and did interesting film development. I developed my test roll of Fuji Neopan 1600 exposed at 800 with different exposure of the same subject in constant lightning. And also some two rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600 exposed at 1000 ASA. I believe I will publish soon detail 2700dpi cropped scans on Last Roll page, but I can tell you few things about it right now.

I developed both exposed films in Paterson Aculux 2 at dilution 1:9. The one exposed at 800ASA I developed for 10 minutes. While first 8 minutes I was agitating by inversion each minutes 3 times in about 8-10 sec. The last two minutes I didn't make any move with developing tank in a hope to get more development in shadow parts. All shots on this roll where done in low contrast overcast day and I have feeling that time could be little longer than 10 minutes. I made it based on Paterson data for 1600ASA which is 12 minutes minimal.

I had quite a discussion at photo.net about suggested Paterson Aculux 2 development times which turns out to be too long in my first experience, but more and more I work with this developed and Fuji Neopan I realized that development time really depends on light which is used when exposing film. For example I had rolls exposed on beach, where I was overexposing by one stop and all those where heavily overdeveloped even with minimal suggested time from Paterson. Than I developed few rolls with normal time and there went as the best rolls I ever developed. But the where shot with different camera and in overcast day.
I will come to this subject more in on e of my articles I am preparing as a part to replace notes page.

All this observation was more or less conform on other two rolls I developed Sunday, which were exposed on 1000ASA and developed for 12 minutes where agitation was same as before. Three inversion in about eight seconds for first ten minutes than last two minutes no inversion. These films turn out little better, but what is interesting on one roll there were shot done (this roll wasn't mine) in night in room and other shots done on mountains in snow in full sun light. Shots in night would be better with maybe one or two minutes more with now inversion to get more details in shadow parts. On the other hand the shots from mountain are just perfect.

What I wan't to show on my last roll page is effect of different exposure of Neopan 1600 when developed same time. Difference in achieved details in shadow, and who knows what I will see when I look on grain.

I have updated Last Roll page with simple test for details in shadow and highlights of Fuji Neopan 1600 exposed at 800 developed in Paterson Aculux 2. It is nothings extremely scientific, but only real life experiment.

For the few last years I was following and joining some discussions on different web forums about photography. I do not know really why, but lately I am just getting tired of it. Most of them just going all around about the same useless discussions. Talking about it, but very few or nobody actually try and present some results. It takes a lot of energy from me which I like to spend on actually doing my photography. Only one or two forums I am still following. Digital B&W print forum on yahoo and from time to time B&W forum on photo.net.

A lot of thoughts coming through my mind when I thinking about my photographs and the way I am going further. Few people gave me advices which triggers more thinking and open new view on certain things. Like C.S. did when she told me I should work on theme. As she did when she told me that my strong point is in light and atmosphere catching on my photos. And that I should focus that way. As N.B. said that having human as a part of my picture, even not in focus is advantage which adds to feelings and story of the photo. All those and some more advices and comments are running in my hand and hopefully it will drive me to right direction. I feel it, it will. Thank you all for that!

I have found one, forgotten roll of Kodak TMY exposed about year ago. I just take it and developed with Paterson Aculux 2, as that is what I am using. Film is hanging to dry now, but it looks very good. I used times from Paterson sheet, 12 minutes. And for who is interested, I agitate by twice inversion each minute for about eight sec. I will scan it soon and than maybe if some shot is any good I will place it here for you to see.
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I just finished scanning and I must say that film was little overexposed. That time year ago I was using Bessa-R2 and most of the shots from that time are overexposed by one stop. It is not error of the camera but I was most of the time keeping same setting for whole series of shots and it end-ups most of the time by overexposing. This makes it little difficult for scanner to get through but it is not uncorrectable. There are one or two nice shots. But more for family album than for publishing here ;-)

I had finish packing last three orders. Yes, order are coming. Majority are from people I met or I know personally. Last few orders are reaction on the exhibition.
I was thinking to put few prints on eBay. I have no experience with selling there, but that could be good indication what people like and how much they willing to pay for it. I made small list of things I need to prepare before I try it. It seems to be nice and funny experiment to sell there. Maybe it will fail totally, but I will see.

I made small plan what to add and improve on my web site to be more prepared when I start selling on eBay. Past weekend I did quite a update, which is running on my home copy. When I am bit more satisfied and things are nicely cleaned I will upload it on piskoftak.com.
Among the other things I have changes or add is also removing thumbnail navigation between images. I realize and also had feed back, that visitors in majority are looking on thumbnails and not on bigger pictures. Than when actually look at bigger image they realize that they miss some interesting photos from thumbnail view. Therefore I made change that galleries (and in future projects) will be displayed as series of only big images and there will be no thumbnails preview.

I have received issue of bi-monthly magazine LensWork. I have order this tryout issue based on suggestion from Daniel Staver. Magazine is made on quality paper and in very handy size. Nice to read and look at with cup of tea under a lamp in quiet evening. I have complete issue in less than two hours. Some of the article are interesting some less. That is quite usual. They also publish some interviews with photographers on DVD/CD and extra silver gelatin prints and, as they call it, folios of photographer. These things are order-able extra. It is nice but for Europe quite expensive as subscription fee for two years is almost double of US one. I will probably order first 40 issues on CD and print some articles and read it. Much cheaper, thought less enjoyable for evening reading.
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I have shot whole roll of Fuji Neopan 400 today a