Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

I was doing last changes and preparation on my web shop yesterday evening until today early hours. Still, not everything is as I was planning. I had in mind to open web shop today, but it seems like the big day will be tomorrow, the 2nd of September. I have tomorrow my extra day off and I will be busy most of that day with last changes and fixes.
I am really wondering how this will turn out. You know, I never sell anything on web and I am extremely curious how it will be. I have a two friends on Internet which have their shops. One Dave is selling his prints mostly from New York and Dirk is offering photo equipment, mostly made in Japan. They both doing quite well as far as I know. So now is time for me, here in Europe ;-)

I have just made my web shop accessible. I hope it will all work well. Later I will add few more notes. Enjoy and let me know about any problems you encounter while using my web shop.

I asked few friends to take a closer look at my web shop and to notify me if something is not working as expected. So far I didn't notice any problems. I carefully watching logs and everything seems to be working fine.

Just few minutes ago I have send e-mail to a lot of friends with small note that my web shop is up. I am very happy I made it just one day later than I planed. Well, considering that original plan was for May, that this is quite big delay, but on other hand I am glad it is on line anyway.
And you who is reading this note, let me know what do you think about it. I am curious. I have few points I want to make better, but if I hold lunch because of that than it will be delayed for ever I guess.
So that is, I am tired, it is evening and I am glad. Have a nice rest of your day, wherever you are. Enjoy it!

I always feel so good, if it happen to me that I manage something nicely and it's working perfectly. Not I am not talking about web shop again ;-)
As you maybe remember I have little trouble to resume my developing procedure after we rebuild the bathroom. The last thing I need was that nice hose you use for washing negatives in tank. I didn't use it before because I could nicely manage with hose from shower. Now it is not possible. Viera has a brilliant idea to develop in the kitchen. I do it anyway always in the evening. Last thing was that in kitchen sink is deeper and there is no hose which will fit in the tank. I was looking at Internet for those original washing hoses and found three types from Paterson, Kaiser and Jobo. All of them rather expensive (over 15 euro) and I need to count minimum of 10 euro postage as no shop near stock them.
And time went on and on I wasn't sure if I really want to spent the money with the risk that hose will not fit into my tank. I use old tanks I bought when I was twelve. They work perfectly and all my data are for those tanks.
The other day we went to hardware store and I have notice that I can by fitting for our water tap in kitchen and fit hose on other end. And that what happen I bought one, fits perfectly. I also had some rest from transparent plastic hose I used for aquarium which fits as well. Everything works just perfect, I also added some kind of seal for outside of hose and opening in tank which holds house tightly in the tank. Works perfectly! I believe that any other will not fit this perfect. So my washing will be more efficient and I can start developing tonight. What a beautiful day!!! :-)

As they were skateboarding one after each other, there where always few of them waiting for the one in action to stop or crash. It went quite fluently as a perfect harmony.

It took a bit long but I have resume my developing. And it was a bit tiering yesterday as I develop on new place and have to find out my rhythm again. I needed to make new batch of fixer and temperature is quite hight these days, so I need to cool down all liquids.
For the fans of Fuji Acros I have a news. I think I have found, finally, the right way. Dirk would be happy :-). Yes I have exposed Across at 50ASA and develop it for 9 minutes at 20C, with 15 sec agitation in first minute and than one inversion each minute until the end. Great and I mean great tones!!! In a few minutes I am going to develop next four rolls. Two of them will be again Across now at 100ASA and two are Maco UP 100, still the rolls of expired film I have bought almost year ago.

I am enthusiastic about it, and maybe if I have a bit of time tonight I will post one shot from Across.

And about web shop, well no purchases yet :-) but huge amount of page views. I have got almost 1500 page views, which is almost 4000 hits yesterday.

One of those days when I was trying different way of expose and develop Fuji Across film, I went and try to exposed it at 50ASA, It was a bright sunny day. I point my camera at this metal beetle in our garden. I develop it month later and was shocked by beauty of tones it produced. Until you see the print you can full appreciate how nice it is.

Yesterday evening I did last two rolls of Acros I still had not developed. They were exposed at 100 ASA. I also did two rolls of MacoPhot up100 as I planed. I have used shorter time as before to try little less dense negatives. But you can't compare it to Fuji Acros. Those Acroses are almost transparent if there is no exposure and perfectly fit scanning. MacoPhot is dense. It is really old technology film and base is much denser than newer films.

As you can see, I have put also first shot from Fuji Across exposed at 50ASA on web. I also print it yesterday and it looks incredible. I am very happy I broke Fuji Across resistance. Now I can have nice 50ASA film for sharp Sun and also for strong light details scenes.
I will be developing huge amount of MacoPhot's and Foma 100 films which I have from last 2 month. Is up to forty rolls. So you are going to see a lot of images in near future.

I will do few changes on webs hop, some of them required some file reallocations on server and therefore shop could not be accessible this evening for a few hours. It is nice to see that after few days shop is on it attract quite a attention and I have received very useful comments. This evening I will be implementing some of the comments.

I am finished with changes on the Web Shop. For the moment it was one big change which hopefully will not be visible to you. I have made Web Shop available without need of accepting mine, self signed certificate. It wasn't the best solution I know, but on other hand my Web Shop is not storing any credit card numbers. All payments are done either through secure PayPal (credit card transactions as well as normal paypal ones) or out of my system at all, using bank transfer or Cash On delivery.
Also speed should be better now as encryption will not be necessary.

I was having kind of slow day today. Anyway I did some fixes on web shop which my friend tested quite a lot. I have list of things from Dave. I didn't do that much, but I needed some rest today.

It is a while now when I saw first time 'SimpleViewer'. ShockWave a customizable Flash image viewing application. I really like way how it is done and how it presents the pictures. I am some way flirting with idea to used it on my web. At least for 'Recent' menu. There is few things I am not sure about. One is how I am going to track which pictures viewer was actually looking to. Second flash itself needs some plug in so certain web browser will be off and the rest will be required to install it. Even I believe almost everybody has it these days even without knowing about. Well let see, do not put too many new things at the same time.

Today morning was one of those morning when as I ride my bicycle to the work I feel not like a foreigner in this country. I am living here the sixth year and only from time to time I have feeling that I am not foreigner. Today morning was nice I first met colleague from work as she was walking in our village with a dog. Next I saw that there is again new horse in a fence I took some pictures before. Than Sun was nice and little fog on fields. It does feel very nice. Than as I was passing petrol station I wave to the guy there and he wave me back. These small things can make my day. Than you feel not anymore like somebody who is standing outside. I like this feeling I had it back home when I was walking through small forest to university, all these early morning for the first lecture still curious what new I will see today. It is great. Today I am full of energy the same as I was tired yesterday evening. Well let's do some nice things today!

I have just developed four rolls of old expired Maco UP100 which I have bought cheap last year and exposed this summer. I still have about 10 rolls of it exposed waiting for processing. I wasn't very happy with last two rolls I have done last Sunday. It looks like in strong sun light, some of the light get into canister. Some corners of the film where black, indicating light leakage.
I developed today two rolls in Aculux 2 and they look quite ok, at least not dark edges. And wonder wonder, I have did last two rolls in Rodinal 1+25 for 8 minutes. I am curious as all people I talking about this developer but I never liked it. I used it when I was around 20 but didn't like it a bit. Now I said to myself, well let's try it with this Maco thing. It can't go worse that it already is with expired film ;-)
I bought small 125ml bottle and use 20ml of it for these two rolls which are washing now. I am going to take a quick look, how they are...

Well, surprise surprise, they look very nice sharp and bit more contrasty then I am used to. But of course just looking at wet negative doesn't bring you the right information. I should scan them tomorrow or tonight when are dry. Than I tell you more. But it was fun.

I have just get information that our web site will be down today from 18:00 until 19:00 GMT. It is caused, by maintenance needs of connection provider for mine web server.

So I am just scanning first shots from roll of Maco up 100, which I have developed today morning. They looked very dense and contrasty. Now when I scanning it I can see that negative a really extremely dense. Minolta has problem to scan them. I can do now two things. Either I continue with Aculux 2, or I risk ruining next two rolls with shorten time or higher dilution. I am not sure what I will do but maybe the first option is safer.

One rainy day in April we went for a walk. She was so happy and jumping all round.

I move on today and developed another four roll of Maco up100 plus from this summer. This time I have used at first two rolls Rodinal at 1:50 for 10 min with agitation every minute. Last two rolls I soup in Dutch Amaloco AM74 diluted 1:15 for 7:30 agitating every 30second.
All rolls are drying now and I will scan them morning after I get some sleep.

I have also did some printing today. I am having again slight problem with my printer. I really have no idea what it can cause. On few places I have very thin stripe of black color across the print in direction of printing head movement. I am really not sure why.

Traffic on web is rising every day, hopefully it can get at least to the level before holiday when I was having around 25000 page views a month. That would be nice. Hopefully it can bring some customer to my web shop.

My favorite testing ground is children's playground. I love to be there Sunday morning when sun is young and shadows are long. Light is nice contrasty and all metal things has little moisture. Nobody is there. I take advantage of great light and mine own memories from childhood and I am forgetting about camera and focusing in image. This photo was created same way. As additional factor I had Fuji Across exposed at 50 ASA. And I love the result.

One of those sunny day, she went to back garden and I followed her with camera.

Playing at the lake. I was fishing around David and his friend with my 28mm lens. I made more nice shots but I lik this one the most.

This is the end of Rodinal for me. Results from my last 1+50 try are not in any sense better. But I would say worse. Grain is more pronounce and contrast is even higher. I will stay with my Paterson Aculux 2.
I have add few pictures on galleries, mostly informal portraits. All of them are done with Fuji Acros. I am starting to like it. And pity that I didn't shot more of it at 50ASA. And I shouldn't tell you that I add next example picture for Fuji Acros at 50ASA to my article page.

After a couple of month I have look again on street photography mailing list and there was again two weekly saloon. It is kind of competition for a list members. Theme is announced by the winer of the last saloon. This time it is "refuge". Just for fun I sent my image there. I was looking for about week before this at messages floating there. But it makes me return to my original thought about majority of mailing lists. It is mostly time consuming and very little rewarding experience. Maybe it is just something wrong with me, but somehow I do not feel like discussing about latest or old cameras, films and developers. And I really do not need "nice, I like it" kind of "review" of my images.
What I would really appreciate is discussions on topics like, reasons, views and thoughts of humans. Those themes which bring you interest to photograph particular project or images. So not with what and how, but why to photograph things, peoples and actions.

I did today something I never did before. I made portrait session on the order. On one sides I did because it is our friend who ask it and second reason why is that I just like to see how I manage. To have another experience. I just developed two rolls of Fuji Across I used for this session. It took about one hour and two assistants with some white diffusing screens around. I used nice afternoon Sun and simple compositions. If it will be nice I will post some shots later this week. As I said I went for Fuji Acros at exposed it at 50ASA. Negatives look promising, but you never know.

I finished scanning from my yesterday's portrait session. It look very good. Thanks to the Fuji Across exposed at 50ASA (I feel I should repeat this all the time) great tonal scale was achieved. From around 70 shots I have selected over 12 which I really like. It is huge amount, normally I like like 2 or 5. I put all on CD for orderer to choose from. And tomorrow afternoon I should have favorite selected and than Friday work on it and print.

What I also need to tell you is quite of funny. You know that I was developing a lot of Maco up100p lately. Yesterday when I went developing those Acros films I also took two rolls of Maco. I normally do two tank one after each other. Each of them with two films. It is less work to combine and in 2 hours I have four films ready. Somehow I changed tanks , even I have them marked. And I have developed Maco same way I was supposed to develop Acros. And surprise surprise Maco looks the best of all my tries. Of course is far from Acros, but it looks pretty good.
I am focus now on this order so later when I am done with it and I have little time I will publish some shots from these old expired rolls of Maco up100p.

So that's all folks for tonight. After a tough day, full of talking to myself and friends, feeling like lost soul with no direction but pressure under soup pan cover I am leaving you with glass of Porto...

Tomorrow is Friday. I have quite a things to do. I need to made a prints for one customer and also print from portrait Tuesday's session. I also need to fix some small problems on web shop.
I also have some nice shots from films I developed lately. I will put them to galleries. One is particularly nice. Shadows of the tree casted on old house by strong spring light.
So all and all I am looking forward to tomorrow, when I have whole day for myself. Oh, I almost forgot. I have start experimenting today with simpleviewer, flash script for displaying photos. I like it quite a lot and it seems that it will do very well for my projects pages. Those pages do not attract enough attention, even they contains images not shown anywhere else on site. Strange is that visitors never get further than on first page. Well mostly, there are some which go further, but it is really only few of them. So maybe this can improve. I will see.

After long winter is extremely nice to see such a strong light and to feel little warm soft wind blowing into hair. This is especially true in Sweden. Air is quite cold but sharp Sun starts to warm up a walls of houses. Gamla Stan, Stockholm.

I am enjoying it today very much. Work is nicely progressing. I have fix some problems on web as planned yesterday. Print from portrait session is ready. It took quite a while and I needed to do few test prints on final paper (expensive). I also put one picture on web. It's name is spring house, and is for me extremely refreshing. Together with the fact that we had very foggy and rainy weather in last three days and the sunny afternoon now, brings me mood very high.
I am just printing it. I went for Ilford Smooth Pearl paper and 2880 dpi. I see a piece from printer and it look extremely good. It is fantastic! And guess what? Probably you have no idea but this was done on Maco up100+ with the extended development in Paterson Aculux 2. The tonality with the strong light and contrast makes special feeling.

While being with children on a nice trip we visited one of those child parks which have sort of farm. Children can play with animals and see how do they live. I was amazed by light in this old farm house which was occupied by few rabbits.

I need a break, whole day I was busy with printing, scanning and little web coding. I have put another picture. Also made on Maco up100+ this time developed by Rodinal 1+25. Print look quite ok, actually very good. Only to much pronounced grain could be for somebody a bit of problem. Well, it is not so bad on this print as it contains a lot of details and grain is masked by them.
We have party tonight so I need to move a bit. I hope you enjoyed new photos, more will come as I did scan of four more today. Just need process them a little and make some prints. As you know I never publish anything I didn't print at least as test. So enjoy your Friday afternoon and see you tomorrow!

BTW: Anybody like to buy Olympus OM-2s program?

Maybe you know it, early morning Sun is low and strong. Shining through colored glass and making beautifully shadows, almost paintings on the wall. Brings you that small boy feeling, when you were young and mama was making breakfast.

I didn't make any note in my journal this weekend and it wasn't because I did nothing ;-) Just opposite. I have matted the print of baby portrait I did Friday and get paid for it.
As you see those last three prints I made a little experiments with them. sunny doorway and rabbit's house I have printed using carbon ink only. This gave them slightly warm tone which nicely fit with light in those two pictures. What I have also try was again print on Ilford Smooth Pearl paper. Print has a quite bronzing in it so I spray it with three layers of protective spray. It looks better now but paper have bit raw feel in hands. I need to find different way to do this coatings or just keep mate papers only, for the moment.
I also refine my backup strategy and I hope it will work better than previous on demand backup which was ok until something terrible doesn't happen. I have also develop next four rolls and it seems some nice shots will be there.
As a last I am experimenting with bigger prints. Even I can't make bigger than A4 size on my printer currently I can stitch them together under glass. I have place for five big (up to A2) format in my living room. So I am doing those prints and will see how do they look on wall.
So far for now...

I just realize something interesting. After I had discussion with a seller of Amaloco product about two different fixer Amaloco is producing, I start using stop bath again. Well to tell you little bit more. I am using Amaloco X89 an alkaline fixer. He was telling me that I need to use acid stop bath with as the development process is not stopped by this type of fixer. Or I should use Acid fixer instead and than there is not need for stop bath.

Yesterday I have developed batch of Maco up100p films and use 8 min for them and stop bath as well. They turn out to be much, and I mean much less dense than when I didn't use the stop bath. Also highlights are better controlled. Interesting.
I am just afraid I need to change all my times if I do use stop bath now with this fixer. And maybe I should, if it does have such a big effect. maybe also my films are not fixer perfectly. I have stopped using stop bath about two years ago when I have start using Paterson Aculux 2 developer.

I have found a some today afternoon and have enhanced some things on web. I have also fixed problem with photo browsing menu in MS Internet Explorer. Now it should be better. I also changed some color definitions for shop part and they should be more consistent with rest of the site.
Please, let me know if something is not working as expected.

Sometimes I find myself in completely deep stage of focus. It happens to me today, when I decided to fix some things which were annoying me for long. And I start doing some VBScripts. I never do them except some simple one for IMatch to automatize my photo management. Today I went and I code my login script which based on my IP address mount some disk and set some environment variables. It was so exciting that I forgot to go for lunch. Isn't that nice such a deep focus. I love it. I remember myself when I have go my first job at age of 19. I was working at computer center of local university. Every morning I was walking to the work in complete disconnection from reality. I had in my mind only solutions for problems from every day. That time I was coding in assembler of IBM 370 mainframe computer.

I have fixed also some wrong references to pictures in article about my favorites film and developers combinations.

Well, I was quite busy last few days. You see, more busy I am less I am writing here. Thursday I have received test packages for note cards from Red River paper. This is the same paper which Dave was using when he was producing his note card. I like to try it as well and if it goes well than I will prepare few series for Christmass. I think that could be nice item for shopping in that time of the year on my web shop. Maybe it will attract more customer.
Traffic is increasing on web shop, but so far I had only one order last week. Maybe you surprised why didn't I announce it and didn't celebrate. Well I do not know why, it just went so fast I send it next day after order came and I was busy with other things last weekend, than I just forgot to announce it :-)

This week I made also my backup strategy active and running it for first week in new form. It looks quite ok and maybe I will write a little about it in specific article on this site. I am starting to get feeling that is better to put this technical stuff out of this journal and focus more about my thoughts and attempts in photography.

Today Dave notified me that shipping calculation wasn't working in my web shop. I had a look at it and couldn't find anything really wrong. So I start searching forums and yes there were discussion about it. Based on information from forum and some debugging I have fixed shipping calculation module and even post this fix to osCommerce contribution site on TPG Post module.
And when I am reporting what all I did ;-) I must mentioned also some improvements in my RSS 2.0 feed. There were few mistakes which are now fixed. I would like to include some img in it but I am not sure what is a correct way to incorporate html inside of RSS. When I find out maybe you can see simple thumbnails in RSS when I put new photo on web.

In following days I will take my portfolio and go to city near by to have it reviewed by few people. There is going on quite big photo festival.
I need to order some new stuff like paper and some developers I am running slowly out.

Just a short note as I have to go soon. I have met today interesting group of people. We are going to meet once per month with our photographs. Seems like a lot of fun. They are creating different and I have to say interesting work. Almost each of them is different. Nice is that it seems like very open group. I hope it will be continuing in the way it was today. In that case we can enrich each other with our comments and views.
The other day I was talking with Dave about groups which would be not focus on technical details, on nonsense discussions what is better A or B. We both agreed that would be great to be part of the circle which would discuss reasons and expressions behind photographs. So it would be more about why you did this and what you like to express and what would you try and why.
It happen here and maybe I have found such a group of people.

When you have advantage of talking local language you can make whatever you want. I was having quite fun with these boys and even they first didn't want to be photographed, we made it so fun that at the end they enjoy it as much as I did.

Another from series with the boys on the bridge. We had fun, but they played with me and doesn't wanted to get photographed, or at least they pretended that way. I was faster and catch his hand in right position.

I have but new two photos on web and also have modified my RSS generator to include small thumbnails into RSS itself. Now you can see small picture in your RSS feeder/viewer.

I had discussion about my way further in photography. I was glad, that I was asked in the group to talk about my photography as I myself needed to put things together and make clear view. I come up with following:
I do not like my photos anymore, they are too nice and that's it. They do not have any extra expression from myself. I like to put into pictures more symbolics and more tension which will require more thinking from observer. Not everything will be on picture. One would be able to find only fragments, symbols, questions and little directions. All the rest he or she will need to make by his mind. To achieve that I need to make my pictures in little bit more controlled way and I am not afraid to say it, staged. This way I can create my own vision and I can create even little surrealistic shots.
I must say I am kind of enthusiastic about it. I do not have any exact ideas, but I am planning to create small series (projects) of photos which will express one theme, my view on certain topic. This way I will be not only observer, as I was up to know, but also creator!

When I started to write this note I though I will write much more, but seems to me that all important is said and I would be only adding volume.

I am selling my Konica Hexar AF with lens based on 35 mm Leica Summicron.
It is original black model, which has super silent mode. As addition it has upgrade and all following features are also available:

• Multi-exposure
• Manual selection of flash guide number
• Infrared auto focus
• Auto-bracketing

Works perfectly and as you can see from following pictures is in perfect shape. It goes with flash, copy of the manual, UV filter and new battery in original closed box.

Here are three pictures:
hexar-1
hexar-2
hexar-3


Let me know if you like to know more by email.

I am proud to inform you that yesterday my site served over 1200 pages in 24 hours. This is September record. It is still far below what was traffic on my web site six month ago when I use to have over 25000 page views per month. It is nice to see people coming and taking look at my pages. Unfortunately very little traffic on my web shop, probably I need to do some advertisement.

I have scanned Fomapan 100 which I developed over the weekend. It was exposed at 80ASA in sunny weather. I develop it in Paterson Aculux 2 for 8 minutes (recommended is 9-10 for 100ASA). It is ok but not spectacular. I need to use little less maybe 6 minutes to get less dense negatives. I will try that soon.

One of my colleagues at work is trying again to do some black and white photography and we talk a lot. I am giving him advices about chemicals and films and where to buy them. He suggested, and maybe I will do that, to add this information to my article about films and developers. Maybe it can be handy for other people, especially from Europe.

As you may know I am selling my Konica Hexar AF with lens based on 35 mm Leica Summicron. I have add more photos and updated the old ones. More information about camera can be found here:

• http://www.cameraquest.com/konhex.htm
• http://www.photo.net/equipment/point-and-shoot/konica-hexar

• hexar-7
• hexar-8
• hexar-1
• hexar-2
• hexar-3
• hexar-4
• hexar-5
• hexar-6

It is original black model, which has super silent mode. As addition it has upgrade and all following features are also available:

• Multi-exposure
• Manual selection of flash guide number
• Infrared auto focus
• Auto-bracketing

Works perfectly and it goes with flash, copy of the manual, UV filter and new battery in original closed box.