Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

So here we have a new year. I am starting with little new and I hope better design of these pages. Not everything is completely finished, so please be patience and let me know if you find something not fully working. I will in next few days add missing site map and about pages and also will introduced new layout of photo pages in project and recent page.

I have developed some rolls I have exposed with flash and also some with pushed Neopan 400 to 800 asa. All those were little experimenting and both developed with Paterson Aculux 2. Those Neopans I have already scanned but seems like highlights get blowed. It is not big problem as I was doing all shots inside of dark room and outside was bright sunny day. The brightness difference was huge. What is shot inside is nice, I must tell you that I am quite surprised. I have even feeling that results is better that Neopan 1600 @ 800.
The other two films were Fuji Across, one exposed in dance theater with flash and outside in daylight. These two I have to still scan. With flash one looks very contrasty, outside looks great. Let see after scan.

After experience from yesterday I decided to try out developer I used once with very good result. I only left it because is powder and quite expensive. For 15 films around 10-14 euros. Tetenal Emofin is the name. It is two bath developer which has two very nice features. It is compensating developer and also well suited for pushing sensitive films even more. So exactly what I need for my test of Fuji Neopan 400 exposed at 1600. I also like to test Fuji Across exposed with flesh to see if I can get less contrasty negatives with more shadow and highlight details than I have got yesterday with Paterson Aculux 2.
One thing I have to tell you. Doing this continuous 3s inversions with this developer is ok up to 4+4 minutes (so it means 8 minutes in total), but for Neopan 400@1600 I needed to do it 9+9 minutes. So 18 minutes of constant rotation. I did it in 5 sec interval but it is in reality non-stop.
And results? Well I will be scanning tomorrow but this Neopan 400@1600 looks good. And Across? It definitely have more detail and lower contrast. Maybe next time I will do it longer 4+4 as I did only 3+3 today. I tell you more tomorrow. It is definetely interesting.

Morning, the last day of previous year, Hape Smeele called me. I was very glad that I hear him as I was planning to meet him and Caroline Schroeder soon. What was my surprise when he asked me if I do not want to make some pictures from some theater like new year party of certain company. I have to arrange few things and today I was there.

I was taking pictures from around 12:00 until 17:00 and as light goes down it become more and more difficult. Not only that but around 16:00 I was already so tired of paying attention to all things that I need double coffee.
Now I have first four rolls in tank ready to be developed. I was planning to use Fuji Neopan 1600 but I could not find it in such a short time so I used Fuji Neopan 400 exposed at 800 and Kodak TMZ exposed at 1600. But I need to first take some sleep I can barely stand. Quite surprise I must say.

Whole session was very intensive. I need to follow stories, watch out for background and light and try not to eclipse player before public. Quite funny was that I had almost same dress (black) as the players so quite a few people thought that I am just playing with them :-)

I have shot few different things in last few weeks and have not print much of it. I hope I can make things up. I made shooting on one party where I used first time my SB-28 flash. A lot of nice shots for people there I believe. Than I made some shots on my daughter ballet presentation at the end of the year. And that yesterdays session. And I have also few things I promised and are hanging on me for long time. I need to finishes all of this before I go to next photo session. So I will be, so called 'closed in darkroom' for some time now :-) I hope it will bring me energy for better shooting than!

I didn't tell you that, but I have new obsedancy. I have found out that I can receive Slovak and Czech locale TV station and few more over satellite here. I am completely hook up with the idea to be able to see again things I liked there. So I am reading a lot about digital satellite receivers, LNBs, cables, dishes, coding cards and all those things. Trying to get into it and understand so I can make good choice when I will buy one such a sets. It always surprised me how things are complicated and choice is not easy when you jump to the topic you never heard about before. Years ago I remember my friend has analog satellite receiver for free to air stations.

I had a tough week. Last three days at work I have some courses which are very enjoyable but on other hand they took a lot of my energy. I am tired. I was planning to develop last rolls from Monday session.

When I am talking about developing. Recently I have developed my favorite one year expired Maco up100 plus in Tetenal Emofin. That film I also shot with my new flash SB-28. Using compensating developer, like Emofin, is a great advantage when you expecting high contrast shot. Shot done using flash tend to be contrast, hard shadows. Emofin in combination with Maco film is nice. You can hardly tell that there were any flash used in those shots.

I know, I know it is a long time when I put some new photos on web. I am recently very busy with developing and scanning. Soon I will have new things to publish. Maybe also some from my Monday session if customer agree.

I am using Tetenal Emofin developer recently for pushing Fuji Neopan 400 and also to compensate developing on shots which were done with strong back light. I am very happy with results I am getting. One thing I noticed very soon was that this developer is much more aggressive chemical than anything I used before. After developing my first few rolls I destroy rubber I had on ground and have some mark on table and washing machine. I start using rubber hand gloves.

I developed today Kodak TMZ 3200 exposed at 1600 in Tetenal Emofin. Reason why I did it was that I know thats hots contains very strong back light and I like compensating effect of Emofin. I couldn't find any time anywhere so I used 4+4 minutes in constant agitation. I may do 5+5 next time. But let see how scanning ends up.

I am looking again on scan of Maco done with flash developed in Emofin. They look very good. Some shots contains three different light situations. Strong flash exposure, total dark parts not lit with any light a nd that window with direct Sun. All part have details in it, amazing.

Today I had quit busy day. I finished scanning of last negatives and than I made first selection from Monday session. Now I have this selection printed and need some time to look at it.

From today you can also put my RSS feed to your feed reader. It will be updated any time I add something to my journal or I add new picture. So you can monitor my site using you RSS feed reader. Address to my feed is http://www.piskoftak.com/rss.xml.

For very long time I was bothered by noise of my computer. When I bought it five years ago it was quite top line machine with two CPU Pentium III and 1GB memory. It has fan on each CPU plus one fan blowing air in big tower case and one on power supply to take it out. About two month ago I have bought silent cooler for one of the CPU. It helps but I can't use it for second as well because a size. Those two coolers didn't fit next to each other.
Yesterday I install monitoring soft and I saw that temperature on my CPU are all far below 30C and temperature in case is about 25C. I decide to stop big fan for air taking into case. That lower the noise quite a lot and increase temp in case only by one degree of Celsius. The next step I did was disconnecting the old noise fan from CPU1. Temperature raised on 46C on full loaded CPU for about 30minutes.

Now I have very low noise PC and still cooled enough. Next step which I plan is install copper passive coolers on both CPUs if the fit. I have found nice from Zalman. Just have to be sure that they can fit next to each other.

I have got e-mail asking me more about how I develop Neopan in Paterson Aculux 2. I have wrote so long answer, which I can believe can be useful to somebody else as well.

I am using Neopan for quite some time (few years) and with Aculux 2 for about two years. You can search my journal for Neopan and you will get a lot of links. Use google for search using this term "Neopan site:piskoftak.com"

I have found Aculux 2 very good developer for this film. It gives me very nice tonal range and good contrast. Because it is one shot developer I can reproduced results by 100%. I am using destilate water to dilute it 1:9. I always develop 2 films in my tank using 550ml of liquid and inversions are following:
after puring liquid in I start clock and inverting non-stop for the first 15 seconds. Than on start of each minute I do one slow inversion which take about 4-5sec. By inversion I mean twisting tank bottom up and back. I develop like this 12 minutes if there was low contrast subject. (like shots in rain, or grey weather), if the shots were done on bright sun with higher contrast I develop only for about 10 minutes.

I need to tell you one think what I observe. Before I used Olympus OM-2n camera and now I use Nikon F80. On both cameras I mostly use aperture priority mode. OM-2n is using central weighted exposure metering on F80 I am using 3D matrix metering. The second (Nikon) exposing less than OM-2n did. My negatives are better now with F80. Easier to scan and still having enough details in dark parts. So all and all you need to try it yourself. I would suggest you shoot one film in subject and light you normally used. Rate film as normal 400 ASA and develop it for 12 minutes. You will see if you than need shorter the time or it is ok.

Can you tell me what is your IE and development time with this film and developer. I didn’t find this information in the article “Developing b&w negatives “.Do you think your development time can be compatible with printing with condenser enlarger?

Yes I am sure it will. I am scanning my films and therefore prefer little less density which is the same what condenser enlarger likes too.

Recently I did a lot of shots in difficult high contrast light, where I needed do shoot dark subject on light background (people in front of window). It was rather dark inside I use Neopan 400 and rated it at 800 and few times even 1600. I used Tetenal Emofin two bath developer to do two things:

- push the film to 800 and 1600
- compensate high contrast exposure


In both goals Emofin Tetenal excels. I have got good negatives and light and dark parts where nicely compensated so contrast was lowered and details in highlight and in shadows kept. Of course grain is more than as exposed at 400, but still acceptable. This is just side note which can be useful or you.

I do not know what kind of photography your are doing, but this can be handy once for you. Tetenal Emofin is German produced developer, which is rather expensive and I find it very very reactive with skin and everything around. Marks on everywhere where it drops. Be careful. Paterson Aculux 2 is much easier and I had no problem with it and is also very economical.

Hands, I always was fascinating by people's hands. You can see and deduct a lot of things from them. Once I was at exhibition of an photographer. He has made as addition to conventionally placed photos, one tunnel where photos where just glued one next to other. One wall of that tunnel was full of hands. I liked that very much. This shot was done when I was taking pictures for a client. Whole day I did a lot of different shots, but for myself I did this and few more. Just for geeks, this is done on Fuji Neopan 400 push to 800 developed in Tetenal Emofin.

I preparing first preview from shots I did for client. It is quite a lot of work. Originally I though it will take me about two weeks, but now it seems like more. I hope you could see first broad selection about end of this week. From this selection the final selection of ten to fifteen photographs will be made.

I have end participation of this web site in black and white photo ring. I removed it from there. For the last four month I didn't receive almost any hits from there. At the beginning it was quite nice, but as time went further nothing really improved, just opposite. I am still looking for a way to improve visibility of my site to increase number of visitors. I was shortly considering banner exchange program, but I am not very sure about efficiency of such a step.

I have start adding pictures which I took for client about two weeks ago, to the special gallery. At first it will contains around 30 shots as a wider selection. This is planned to be size down to about ten shots. The reason why I make it public, is to allow some friends to let me know opinion, for others to see process and for client to be informed. I take it as kind of experiment and let's see how it is going to turn out. Whole process shouldn't take more than week.

After a busy week I have a little time to focus back on my photographs. I received very good feedback for my session photos. Also huge load on web site. First time load on site break point of 2500 pages served per day which was almost 10000 hits in one day.

When Sun was shining so hard that everything has it most bright colors I was always surprised that white walls can still be whiter and keep their surface's details.Such a buildings as these always brought me memories from my childhood, when I was reading stories from foreign countries. This shot is from south of Portugal, Algarve.

time is running very fast these days. After I change department at the beginning of the new year, my load at work increased quite a lot. On one hand I like it as I have more challenging and interesting work and learning a lot of new things. On other hand I have much less time for my family and most of the time I am tired at the end of the day.

The customer is still considering which picture to choose and I am going to take some day off. Looking forward to some skying.
Yesterday I have received mail from the theater group who did performance I shoot 10th of January (man it is already almost month ago). I offered some prints for them. Not sure what they will choose or if they will choose anything. Well I shall see. Taking my camera with me with bunch of films in hope I can do some nice winter shots again. I am sure when I come back I need to do little cleanup in my photo area. Still need to summarize last year and published shots from Nov & Dec 2004. I wish you nice time and I let you know how is snow on other side of Europe!

I am writing this note backwards in time, but I like to mark this day, because it happens this Monday. We visited my parents and after busy day of arranging all stupid but necessary bureaucratic stuff I finally was sitting and talking with my parents.
The talking turn out to my grandparents and mama brought old photo album. As I was looking at those old pictures I felt like flying back in time. This incredible power of photos is amazing. I saw my grandfather who died when I was young boy. I have felt again walking with him and my sister hands in hand. He in dark suit with hat and smoking cigaret. I was back there.
Than on other page my mother showed me picture of her grandparents and even picture of grandparent of her mother. Those pictures where dated somewhere in 1880.

I was planning to add all my thought and news from last two weeks in back order as I couldn't write everything while was on holiday, but days are so buys for me that I just do not have time.
Today is very special here. Heavy, I mean really heavy snow flakes are slowly falling. When I woke up it just started, the grass was still green. Now one our later everything is covered by five cm of snow. It creates compete panic here in south on The Netherlands. Especially on streets, long lines of cars driving slower than bicycle. Just about little more than week I was back in Slovakia where was about one and half meter of snow and temperatures bellow -20C. I was really enjoying nice blue sky and Sunny winter weather. I love it!

Today I have received final selection from picture I made for the client at the beginning of the year. The CBO gallery will be disappearing soon and I will be busy with preparing those ten selected shots for printing. I am glad that this order is going further. The reason is that I have got busy with other things quite a lot at the first two month of this year. New job and other things took most of my time. I am happy that I can go back to photography now again. So there is not a long time to wait for more new and more photographs.

Maybe you already now but we have a snowiest winter we ever had here in The Netherlands. I am living here for about five years now, but every winter if there was any snow it was gone in few hours. Last few days we have almost constant snowing and snows stays for days. Today morning I woke up and there is about 10cm of new snow. They said on news that on north of the Netherlands snow is up to 50cm and people are staying home as they can't reach work or schools. Funny when I compare this to normal condition back in country of my origin, Slovak Republic. When I was there few weeks ago they had over 150cm snow and temperature were about -10C to -25C and everybody was working and going to school as normal.

This weekend I was printing some images and also look around on the ones I have in my room on the wall. What I have notice now clearly and wasn't sure earlier is that my prints from 2001 are getting brown tint. I made them in 2001 using Fuji FDI machines. I print from scanned data adjust that time in PhotoShop and print them in local lab. Normally they say those kind of print should be without color change for about 50 years. Well now after hardly four years they all have brown tint. I have them on wall for about 3 years. There is now direct sun light on that wall. I am quite surprised. Other prints, which I have made in 2002 using my current technology of carbon pigment inks, are without any change.

I am almost done with prints for the client. Only two more to go and that little tweaking as they going to be printed large in lab. The weather turns in last few days fantastic. It is a spring here, sunny nice weather temperature above 10C it is like new life is coming to me.
With this weather change somehow more energy coming to me and I am again taking camera to my hands. I have order from Dirk two 100ft rolls for Neopan 1600 as for long time I have feeling to shoot low light with this film.
What more, my father is coming to visit us. He will be here today and this is first time somebody from my family is coming over after more that five years we live here. I am really looking forward to it.

My new Fuji 1600 100ft rolls arrived today and I hope I can soon load them in rolls. I really have to recommend you Dirk shop. He is very prompt and has stuff for nice prices. I ordered twice from him and have things delivered to Europe in few days for about 9 euro postage. Great service!

We went for a small trip yesterday and I took camera with me. I wasn't hoping to shoot too much, but i have end up with with three and half rolls. We went to sand dunes, which are near by. It was quite nice and I did a lot of tricky shots against sun, you those which I really like. I use Fuji Acros 100. I know that this film in combination with Paterson Aculux is blowing highlights, but anyway I use it. I will try to develop it with that knowledge and shorten the time and agitation.

Today is a first spring and very beautiful day. Great Sun and blue sky and it triggered me to take camera again on my way to work. I finished a half roll from yesterday and I use -0.5 underexposure to see what kind of effect it will have for blowing highlights on this Fuji Acros.
In near by farm they start putting up plastic greenhouses. They look really great in morning Sun. Lights beams through the plastic and it creates nice reflections. If I have some time tonight maybe I develop those films and will see.

When write in last days anything to this journal, it is always about speed of live and how I can't catch up. Things are really changing every day. My father who was visiting us for last two weeks left yesterday. And I have feeling that I didn't do everything I could and I wanted why he was here. I liked to talk with him more like a adult and not as his child. You know about things you can't ask when you were small boy. We had few times nice discussions but it always was to short or interrupted and I really didn't get as far as I liked to.
One is also realizing different things as one gets older. And sometime things comes without any particular reason in my mind.

Yesterday I brought test prints from lab. Yes I am still busy with final stage of order from the customer. Nice is that my lab is now printing also on Hahnemuhle Rag 308g paper. Same I am using up to A4 size. They use huge Epson A0 size printer. The prints which I am going to deliver coming Tuesday will be A3 size printed in this lab. Based on test print I am going to make small adjustments and bring them to lab tomorrow.

I have shoot some more Across Neopan while being on some trips with my father. Maybe I will have a little time to develop them this weekend and than some new shots finally will appear here.

Today was the D-day for me. I have presented ten selected photos to my client and all where accepted and I have get paid. Good. It take a long time, but it is done now. I am glad. It was paid very low but I have got interesting experience.
I went today morning at 11:00 to pickup prints from lab. They are using now Hahnemuhle PhotoRag, same paper I am using for my archival prints, but of course they can go up to A0 size and roll long :-) When I saw prints I was surprised. Last time I did my prints done there they did it on some Fuji Paper similar to Epson Archival Matte. Todays prints were much better. Still not quality I can make home but quite nice. I have got this one time job through Hape Smeele and I also would like to buy one book from him so I decide to call him right away. He agreed that I can come and buy a book from him. Caroline Schroeder was also home and I showed them both the prints. We had a nice chat and than I went to Utrecht to deliver the prints to the customer.

As you already know everything turns out good. Now I can start with some new things and finishing old stuff, in any case I can go further. This took a little longer than I expected at beginning of January.

I have removed some pictures from CBO gallery and left only those which were chosen by the client. I will remove this gallery completely in a few days.

Today morning after breakfast I just start typing this page which wasn't click able for a long time. About page. So I have wrote something about myself and photography. As I started I wrote about a lot of things which happened before I was writing and writing and after while I realize, man this is not book here, common! So I cut a lot.

I must say that it is quite funny to remember all those nice stories I had chance to live through. Maybe one day I write more about some things.

Anyway take a look. I need to also update some texts in my article section. Few information is out dated as my friend told me today.

The CBO gallery is gone now. I am doing quite a changes on internal organization of this web site. I am moving images and making other way to access them. I can't keep them anymore like I did as my provider make some changes which makes it very inconvenient.

It is quite possible that you will see more and more disturbances, please excuse me for it. If you find something not working, please let me know as soon as possible.

On one of our latest visit to Slovakia, I was driving alone to other city over the mountains. After I was down on other side I passed through few nice villages. Once a while I have stopped and take a picture. This meadow was so nice that I have turn my car back and stopped. After walking up and down I have found position which was nicer and took this shot just at the moment birds where flying around.

Do you still remember that place for horses I am passing every morning on bike? You know I made this nice photo there. So, today morning I have notice that after winter they put new horse in it. It is kind of funny as after two big horses they put small pony there. It feel so lost in that big place. It is alone there and I feel sorry for him, he is walking morning when it is still cold up and down to warm up.

Few articles I am updating in these days. First one is about post processing after development of negative. I have added few more information about organization in Imatch which I am using and also put some more detail about scanning. Soon I will update article about printing.

Few days ago I have got a e-mail from TPW about they portfolio day. It looks very interesting. You have 30 minutes personal talk with persons from photography world, like photo editors, agency representative, photographers. You have to subscribe for minimal four of such a talks and there is a price of course for each such a talk. You present your portfolio and maybe you make somebody interested in your work.
Only pity is that I know it for one week and it is going to happen in two weeks. Quite short time and I am not sure if I am ready for such a thing. It would nevertheless very interesting experience. But I need to prepare my portfolio, which is not done now. I also maybe need to specialize little bit more and find out on what exactly. If I would have such a set of photographs ready than maybe would be worse of try to go there.
I am still thinking about it, but let's see what I do. At least I am thinking about to be more specific in my photo work. And I believe that is good. And also have a clear goal where to go is good as well. So even if I do not go there but I make myself ready for it, it will be very good.

When I see them playing, they do not look like kids anymore. So serious faces, questions in eyes. Just look at them, stoned faces, you can feel that hidden tension between players. What is going to happen next.

Films which I have developed yesterday are cut and in sleeves now. I have scanned one and I can tell this Fuji Across 100 somehow doesn't go right with my favorite developer Paterson Aculux 2. I even try some strange dilution 1:14 with funny short time 9 minutes and also try 12 minutes with the same dilution. Negatives have very very short dynamic range they look very flat. I do not know. Somehow it doesn't work for me. I will see more after I scan all four rolls.

I was also whole day busy with installing and setting up web shop. Yes I am finally doing some progress. I choose osComerce as a base for mys hop and after starting doubts I am glad now I went for it. Enormous support from people who use it and quite nice and simple design. I am now in progress of some tweaking and modification to my liking and needs. I am trying to connect it directly with my IMatch photo database. I think it will be not a big problem. There some small problems with displaying images, but I am on good way to solve them. I just need some time.

Whole weekend of quite intensive work on web shop. I must say that I am pretty far in modifying osComerce, the software I am using as base for my shop. For now it was mostly inside modification and not much of look and feel. I have added ability to add photos for sale directly from IMatch. Also made possible for osComerce to use already information I have about photos in my database on web server. As well I was successful in forcing osComerce to use my images stored in database rather than using or generating own images as files on file system. All and all seems to be working fine.

Maybe you bothered with all these technical informations, but I am quite enthusiastic. The reason is simple I was hesitating with putting my images for sale on-line for quite some time and main reason was this web shop stuff. I was really afraid that I am going to spent long time and having no results. Now it is more optimistic, in about three days I have almost all background tasks done. I must say that I feel very good about osComerce and I am glad that my friend Dirk recommended it to me.

I scanned all four rolls of Fuji Across and I must tell you that crazy time 9 minutes and dilution of 1:14 (which is totally out of Paterson suggestion) seems to work quite ok. Better than my other try of 12 minutes for the same dilution.
What I have also noticed that my F80 was metering sometimes very strangely, looks like this behavior happened some 2 rolls before batteries went off. It was quite funny F80 died almost instantly. I was afraid what is going on. I didn't notice anything special before and than camera was totally dead. When I put new batteries everything went ok.
So some of the frames are underexposed very very much.

I always hesitate to put photos of my family members on-line. Today I have found interesting note about that subject and I fully agree with him. Take a look, he also have very nice portraits.

Another interesting thing is information how to get Diafine developer cheap to Europe. mostly you have to order it from big shop from US where you pay almost 30$ postage, or from France where they ignore your English written comments and charge you card with 25euro postage. So here you can find information how you can order it from US for total 25$ including postage.

Some people are always puzzled with question where to take pictures. They go on holiday to foreign countries to see new things and make photos out of it. I like cheaper but little bit more difficult approach. Few weeks ago they made this greenhouse in close by farm. Every day when it is nice light I take camera and when passing by I made shot or four. Last week it was really nice and this is a result.

Friday, you know this is my extra day when I do not work but I am busy with photography most of the time. I do not know if you like the picture of green house. I shot it about two three weeks ago. Today morning was again beautifully morning so I though let's try again. I was counting that the Sun is now up a bit earlier so I went there about one hour sooner that last time. Well, what I have forget to count with was that not only time of sunrise changed but also place from where the Sun is rising. And that made whole difference. There was no nice reflection anymore and I left without single shot as all was too flat and not interesting. It is funny how such a stable things can change in few weeks.
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As you may know I have ordered Diafine from Huron Camera three days ago. I have got it today! This is incredible 3 days delivery from USA to The Netherlands. I had trouble to find source of Diafine in Europe. It was either very expensive or unreliable. Now I have found it. This is faster than from France! So maybe you also looking for Diafine and you are in Europe. Do not wait a second, from Huron Camera you can have it for $24.45 in three days.

From one of the trips we made in Portugal, Algarve. At the afternoon we arrived to city named Mertola. Small streets lead us from center to the castle. Under the castle we found a lot of small houses with curved stone streets were we met local people. We spent there by walking and taking pictures whole afternoon.

In a last few days I am quite busy with finishing of my web shop. It will go soon to beta test phase. It integrates nicely into design of my site. There are still few things to be done and few things to be add, but I hope in 2-3 weeks shop will be open.
I am still going through all negatives and printing what I have selected. It is still quite to go so you can expect few more pictures in following days.

Green house at the farm close to place where I live. This is second from more shots I have done the same morning.

Today morning I woke up quite early and felt completely refreshed. Sometimes I have it, even, like yesterday, I went in bad quite late. When I woke up and saw clear blue sky and Sun just rising I immediately get the idea to go again to my favorite green house and take some pictures while sun is low. I though maybe I can make something from other side, different angle.
So I managed to leave the house in 15 minutes with camera. I jump on bike and ride those 1000 meters. When I arrived things were not looking so great anymore. Sun was nicely low, but that low there was quite a lot of clouds which diffuse a light and than sun beams didn't create that kind of effects on green house I was hoping for. So here I am no single shot made, but I have longer day now!

I went to Amsterdam today to visit my old friends from the time when we all worked for the same company. It was extremely nice hot day and a lot of people where sitting on cafes and restaurants. The city was recovering from yesterday Queen's day and you can see tired faces serving you beer.
We had a nice slow time in that heat drinking beer after beer and eating some snacks. Pity I had to go home so early.
From tomorrow on I am on short trip in Belgium so I wouldn't be able to add any pictures for this time. It is a pity as I was planning to add two which I worked on last few days. But they are not finished yet.

Today we have returned from short holiday trip to Belgium coast. We had mixed weather, mostly sunny but cold and rather windy. In any case we enjoyed it very much. I have shoot about six rolls of Fuji Across and Maco 100 UP.
I did a lot of shots on beach. Some fisherman and later, Thursday few people doing kite surfing.

You know I am still not fully satisfied with the way I am developing Fuji Across. Maybe I shouldn't be that persistent and use my favorite Kodak 125PX. On other hand I can get Across much cheaper. So I have order Paterson FX-39 and yes another experiment it is time to do some test again :-)

You remember that you play whole day in sand and than at the end of the they when you mom call you for dinner you need to clean all the sand out of you socks and between you fingers. Do you still remember that? How old are you? 37? Well, I do remember and that is why I like this photo. Also the soft shadows from a tree reminds me long summer evenings.

I have made very few photos of my friend dalibor. I kind of like this one done few month ago. He has his typical smile.

In a summer when we visiting out parents and families we often go for milk to local farmer. We get fresh milk which taste rather different than milk from shop. We all like it very much and every afternoon ritual of walking for a milk is hared by all of us.

Monday I have ordered Paterson FX-39 developer. And yes, today is it here. I have to mentioned it again. If you in Europe and like to order some chemicals use Speed Graphic you will get it for good price very fast. Maybe they are as as to US I have no idea, they deliver worldwide.
I bought yesterday also Amaloco AM74, developer which I have tried and use for some time about four years ago with Kodak TMX.
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So I am starting my preparation for attack to Fuji Across 100. I like to setup simple test, exposing two situations, high and low contrast. For each doing multiple exposure from -2EV until +2EV exposure compensation in half stops. Developing in Aculux 2, FX-39 and AM74. This will take some time, but I hope I can find a sweet point of Across if there is any with these developers.
And yes it is time to update experiments page.

I almost overlooked this photo. I noticed it few days ago, when I was doing a little cleaning in my photo database and was adding descriptions and marking interesting photos. As you can see this is old wind mill, typical thing from The Netherlands. What is interesting on this shot is that it was done with Fuji Neopan 400 exposed at 1600 ASA. And than developed in two bath compensating developer Tetenal Emofin. You can't really see details from small web picture but on print everything is nice sharp with a lot of details and for 1600 incredible small grain.

One day after the Christmas I bought two disposable cameras for my daughter and son. One early morning we went to nicely frozen country side and toke some pictures. I did few as well. Than we let them developed in one hours service and we had a lot of fun with looking at results afterwords. I did shoot only very few and I developed them home. This one is interesting as it is Fuji Neopan 400 exposed at 1600ASA and developed in two bath compensating developer Tetenal Emofin. Nice tonal scale and contrast with nice minimal grain for 1600 ASA.

I have borrowed tripod and was ready to make my Fuji Across test today. I wasn't going to make any zone system test of zone 1 or any other highly sophisticated tests. I only wanted to see how this films behave in different developers. I wanted to find way to not the blow highlights and keep shadows details. But this on shots I am normally doing in full sun or against sun. So more or less normal shooting situation. I also wasn't ready to use 4 rolls and liters of developers. I just wanted to make it simple enough. And make some kind of starting point which can give me feeling how Across behave in different developers. I know I wouldn't cover all possible situations, but that was fine for me.

There was a beautiful sun whole morning but when I went to make my exposure (half hour ago) clouds arrived and make it very difficult to keep same light condition. So I am in the middle of one series and can't go further. Hopefully weather will change and I can continue.
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And yes, Sun has come out of clouds for next half hour and I made rest of my test shots. I did two rolls, each three times the same series of 9 shots for three different developers. I made first scene on direct sun with details in white and shadows and second scene from inside house towards strong sun light with black shadows bellow the window. I made shots from -2EV up to +2EV of suggested values. I am planning to develop it Paterson FX-39, FX-44 (Aculux 2) and Amaloco AM74.
I have also plans (maybe for tonight) to rework a little experiment page. The idea is keep all old experiments there and only add new. Something like article page.

Today morning I woke up little later. Nice advantage of Saturday. When I look outside i realize that the Sun is beaming with full power and maybe I can do test the way I wanted yesterday. So I went out setup tripod and even found great scene with sky some clouds shadows in tree and road and some brick walls. On this simple scene behind our house was everything from 1/90sec up to 1/3000 sec at f9.5 according spot meter (which I have found not very precise) on my Nikon F80. I did my set of shots.
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Now at the evening I have all test rolls hanging and drying including some normal Across rolls I develop together with those test rolls. So I did in each tank one normal roll and two stripes of 9 shots of two different scenes. One from yesterday, diffused light and one from today, hard contrast light with sky. I can't really see huge difference between FX-39 and AM74 with direct inspection of negatives. Maybe FX-39 developed negatives are little bit darker. Well let wait until it dry and tomorrow I will do scans.

As you may noticed I was doing some changes on web site yesterday. As I decide that could be interesting to change experiments page the way that old experiments are also accessible. Now only the last one there is accessible but soon one older and the new one with my test of Fuji Across 100 will be there. Yesterday I was quite busy with all those changes, which needs to much more work that I thought at the beginning.

I have add old experiment with developing Fuji Neopan 1600 exposed at 800ASA in Paterson Aculux 2. So now I have two items in Experiments page and I can add some new shots and, yes you guess it right also scans from last test of Fuji Across in FX-39 and AM74. Well I am happy we have few extra days this time in May. So check new experiments page out and let me know if it is better than old last roll page.
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Few new prints I have done this afternoon and again some small adjustment on web shop. You can't see it yet but it is almost ready for some decent beta testing.

Exposure -2EV acording the camera meter. On the croped part you can see a lot of details on a shell in white parts and also on white border of the pot. Dark part of the pot shadow becomes almost totaly black and constins no additional informations. Metering shows 92.9% cover from from white to black. Still beter than any of overxposed exposures.

Exposure -1EV acording the camera meter. On the croped part you can see full details on a shell in white parts and also details on white border of the pot. Dark part of the pot shadow keeps all information even is a little darker than exposure without modification. Metering shows 93.7% cover from white to black. This was the best exposure. Little undersposure helps probably as the lighting was dull and most of the subject was darker than 18%grey. Still correct exposure has edge in covered range from white to black, even this shot has conatins the most unique colors. But differences to not modified exposure are marginal.

Exposure +2EV acording the camera meter. On the croped part you can see almost no details on a shell in white parts and white border of the pot is totaly burned with no details. Dark part of the pot shadow becomes light. Metering shows 85.1% cover from from white to black. Counting number of colors also shows that this image contains the lowest amount of informations.

Exposure +1EV acording the camera meter. On the croped part you can see less details on a shell in white parts and also details on white border of the pot are disaperaing. Dark part of the pot shadow becomes lighter and showing all details in shadow. Metering shows 92.6% cover from from white to black.

According to camera meter this was exposed without modification. On the croped part you can see details on a shell in white parts and very little details in dark part in shadow of the pot. Metering shows 95.3% cover from from white to black. From the point of view details and light informartion this was the second or maybe the best exposure.

Every year around end of May we driving 200km to first bigger French town called Lille. Each time among other things we do two, we go for nice lunch in good restaurant and we visit one building holding small, inner square. There we always find people selling old books, prints and other antique printing matters. People are also playing chess and discussing there. It is nice refreshing quiet place while just behind walls of this building is full traffic noise.

There was once a picnic, with a quite a lot people. I am not much of the type of eating all the time and talking a sitting, especially when I have a camera with me and bunch of film rolls. So I went to play with kids in forest behind a picnic place. It was wild and great, I can tell you the feeling when you sure that they forgot about camera and you can shoot as much as you want and nobody pay attention is great. I made about seven rolls in that picnic.

While browsing some photo site yesterday afternoon I have found that quite close to me Epson Fotofestival started. What is also interesting is that they have different activities through the days there open. One of them is portfolio day. I was planning to join one in Italy organized by TPW, but I know it in very short noticed and didn't manage to prepare properly. Also money matter has its role there. This time is close and cheaper and much bigger choice of portfolio consultants. Maybe I will give it a try this time. Let's see.

On a fish market in small village of south of Portugal. Algarve. We woke up early to have possibility to visit fish market early morning and see fisher mans coming to harbor. These two young mans where buying some fish and couldn't found the money. I really like situation on this picture and smile on the face of seller.

I have add new article about my favorite film/developer combination. It is not finished yet but it already contains some useful information. I decide to put my latest findings and proved procedures into one file. This way I do not have to answer same question all the time and I have also one place where to go, if I need to remind myself of something.

As I was writing it, I went through my images for lower sensitivity films and I couldn't resist and think about Fuji Across again. I love Kodak 125PX when developed in Aculux 2, it is just very expensive to get here. I would love to make Aculux my 100ASA film of choice, but somehow I cant' get that right image out of it.
You know, I am using these two cameras. Olympus OM-2n less and less and lately mostly Nikon F80. I noticed, already long time ago, that OM-2n is overexposing sometimes more than one stop when comparing with matrix metering of Nikon F80. So I looked how did I develop Kodak 125PX in Aculux when shot in OM-2n and how when F80 was used. Of course I develop both the same way, but I realize that most of images I really like was done by OM-2n. I said hey! maybe I am actually overexposing this film and developing shorten that I should. And yes I am getting feeling, that this is really the case. So maybe if I try to do the same trick with Fuji Across, maybe, I'll get better images and not burned highlights.

I have select 14 prints for portfolio days I mentioned earlier. So I start printing them and run out of paper. Terrible, it is Friday and I will not be able to get new paper earlier than Wednesday. I have found set of papers I ordered some time ago and never try. I know it is quite risky to use unknown paper for such a thing, on other hand I have a chance to test that paper now properly on multiple images and if it turns wrong I can still use new paper which arrive Wednesday or use cheaper, but good paper I still have.
Tell me why these things are always happening at the moment you wouldn't expect then?

I have successfully prepared set of 13 photographs for portfolio days for next Sunday. I use paper name Merlin which I have bought some time ago instead of usual Hahnemuhle PhotoRag. It is not bad actually is little brighter and little colder than PhotoRag. On other hand I have feel that D max is not as good as on PhotoRag.
What I also did today was I did one roll of Fuji Across and exposed it in my Nikon F80 at 50ASA. I was hoping I will develop it today, but I didn't managed. It seems I will be not lucky for few next days as we are starting tomorrow rebuilding our bathroom. It supposed to take two weeks. For this time no development.
Still I will be busy. I have a lot of rolls from which I didn't print a single frame.

I have received confirmation for my portfolio presentation on Sunday. I am looking forward to it. It is my first official portfolio presentation and it will be with five important people from photography business. With each there is separate 20 minutes meeting.
As we have heavy progress with rebuilding in our house I am not able to develop any new films and frankly I am bit afraid to open scanner and printer from plastic covers as well. I hope dust will not get there. Instead I am focusing on finishing last changes on web shop.

I have made simple modification in configuration of my web pages. From now on I redirect all request to http://piskoftak.com/ into http://www.piskoftak.com/ I realize that most of the people who types web into browser url window are using www. Also when one like to make business card or just simple signature at the end of e-mail is easier to use www.piskoftak.com than http://piskoftak.com/. For people is more understandable that it is web page when they see www. I hope it will not bring any problems.
I was for long time defending position of not using www, but for business is better and also from DNS point of view is correct to use host part of name and not only domain name. So from now on all request which do not use www are automatically redirected to www.piskoftak.com address.

I suddenly notice a lot of people coming from dir.yahoo.com. And yes this site is now featured in Yahoo directory!

O winter games, frozen snow on you face and sweating body under four layers of clothes. Sharp Sun and screaming friends around. Speed and blind eyes falling down hill on a piece of plastic bag!

Siting in the wet plastic and breathing freezing air, sliding down the hill with speed in the hair. Those feelings I loved when I was young. You had frozen fingers on hands and feet, but feel such a heat in your chest. So much fun and such a beautiful time.

Now you can see if I am on line by taking look at right top side of my pages. There you can see small bulb indicating my status on jabber IM. I hope this will not turn against me and I will be not flood with huge amounts of chat :-) Anyway let see how it will work. I just find it nice little thing.

It was hidden on a back garden of one church in south of Portugal, Algarve. My wife found it. I really do not know what is a story behind it and why it is build from human bones, but it look very scary. There are graves in under the floor in front of it.

Tomorrow will be my big day, I am going to show my 13 prints to the five important people in photography business in the Netherlands. All this is part of photo festival in Naarden, NL. I am glad that I have this opportunity. I was earlier, maybe you remember looking at possibility to have same kind of portfolio review in Italy. That time it was organized by TPW. I had less that 10 days that time and I need to fly and have accommodation. This time is much easier for me, only one hour driver by car.
Maybe you ask what do I expect, well to tell you the truth, I hope I will know more people in photo area in this country (I miss that a lot) I hope I will hear some good suggestions and interesting views on my work. Well I shall see tomorrow!

I am back from by portfolio reviews. I spoke with five people and have few comments and quite strong suggestions for the future. I am very tired now to go into details here, and I need to think about it little more. I will write tomorrow little more about it and also my view. Good night now.

So, are you also one of those who are waiting for me finally writing about my portfolio reviews? I guess yes, because I have got about dozen e-mails in last two days asking how was it :-)

I am not going to write about individual talks and comparing person to person. I will write about what I have got there in whole. One need to know that set of people I choose was mainly oriented to newspaper and reportage and less on documentary. I was talking to representatives of dutch edition of National Geographic, two dutch daily newspapers, biggest dutch photo agency and owner of popular photo website covering most of the photo activities in the Netherlands.

When I went there I actually wasn't sure what to expect, I wasn't completely sure what I want as well. I was hoping than reviewers will tell me something (what, I had no idea) which will show me where to go and what to do. And this was probably the problem.
I like photographing as I do now but for very long time I have feeling that it doesn't lead anywhere. That I need to make more with my photographs than only catch interesting situations or nice light. I wasn't and still I am not fully sure what it was what I am missing. Why that kind of uncertainty and lack of satisfaction? Something is missing!

All persons I spoke to had no negative comments to my photographs all of them where in one that technical quality and quality of composition is good or even very good. NG editor has comment about need of more distance to subject and color if I would ever consider publishing there. All other reviewers were equal in comment that I need to have more concrete subject, story in my work.
I was presenting 12 (at the end) prints from my series about childhood comment was following:
it is good for book or for long term work but to wide and too general for newspaper work. For that we need a story about concrete people or subject which is tide to reality and best to the current news of interest"

And than was it when I realize that this is what I am missing I am missing interests on current hit news I am not reporter I am not the one who is going to war zone and take pictures of ruined people and places. But on other hand I also realize that I really like to create stories about something more common and not so visible, about situations which are not in daily news but are part of live of many people. But question is why I am not doing it?
I than realized that photography is not only about photo technique and ability to catch the light. It is also about a message which photographs will bring to other people. And that is why when one see picture, one can easily said which picture is good and which one is not. Both are perfect technically and esthetically but one tell you something while the other is forgotten in few seconds.

For me is now only one question? what stopping me from making me those kind of picture, pictue which show small stories.

I still have a head full of thought of what I have heart in my portfolio reviews. I have got nice mail from friend, and I am reading a lot around the subjects I like to cover with my photos. It is a interesting journey I started by those 20min talks. I am grateful my reviewers for their opinions and suggestions. They make my problem visible and now I can solve it. It is all up to me now!

For a while I was thinking about making some series from commercial environment. This is photo I took while ago, maybe it is a start of it. Who knows?

Last few days we were very much busy with finishing work in our new bathroom and therefore I didn't have much time to do with photography. I nevertheless was thinking and reading a lot about topic which makes my mind busy from time I had portfolio reviews.

I have also receive my order of PermaJet Alpha and Omega papers. I like to try those new papers, which are not really cheaper than Hahnemuhle, but could gave me better results and also option to print little bit more cooler tone.

Yesterday evening I have watch movie which my friend point out more than year ago. It is Czech movie "Cesta z mesta". After I saw it I can't help myself but I mis these kind of movies. It reminds me Slovak movie I saw long time ago "Zahrada". I like both of these, both gave me feeling of freedom.

You know, sometimes it's not easy. Imagine this, two weeks is your house upside down because rebuilding work. Than when you think is finally over, you start doing some stuff for having nicer place to live. So you busy every afternoon after working hours with drilling and all kinds of work with wood. In the middle of the day you got phone call that your son was injured in school and need to go to doctor. So you run there, luckily it seems to be not that fatal as it looks at first sign. And than you go to play tennis as you wish at least once a week to do some sport. When you come back you still need to paint some stuff and after all that is almost eleven at the evening and now you can be artist! :-)
Not that I want to be artist, but I like to make nice photographs and I like to make better. So do not worry, even you didn't see a new picture in last week I am still here and still full of energy, maybe even more than before. I actually fix some stuff at web shop in lunch break today. It is going to be soon, when I will put it on-line.

Last days are long, when I come back from my daily job (yes I still make no much money with my photographs :-), I am busy for rest of the evening with fixing things in house. Work is progressing so I like it. And when I get in a bed, around midnight, I am opening this old book (Craft of Photography by David Vestal) from seventies about photography. It is such a nice pleasure to read it, it is about thinking before you shoot, develop and print. I like that a lot. Hopefully situation in our home will normalize after almost one month of rebuilding and I will be able again develop some films and print some nice images. I am looking forward to it.

I have got few ideas about small projects, but I am going to keep them for myself, hopefully some of them I will be able to produce and than it will be time for show off :-).

As I go further through this Dave Vestal book, I am realizing what mistakes I have made when doing this Fuji Neopan 1600 test. As you may remember, before bathroom strikes I was about to publish some test of Fuj