Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

One would think that all what happened today was one big joke. Well in certain sense it was, but I am glad I did manage to set direction for my future work. The photographs which I exposed on today opened exposition are of that kind which I like to make further. I am really glad that I did this step. I see somehow more sense and more reflection in the work I am doing now than at the photos I did in last five years. Change is always good. If you have a chance and come to Breda, you can see these six prints in real until the end of April.
Next I am going, and that is
the secret, work on series of photos for a small book, which is written by my friend R. and going to be published by other my friend R. If this project will see a light of the world, it will be creation of triple R company :-)
As usually you will be able to see all work in progress here on this web site.

I have just now finished loading my new set of cartridges for epson 2100 with UT7 carbon pigment inks from MIS. Whole process was much easier that I did few years with my old epson 890. I hope it will work also so good. They need to stay for a hour or so to get bubbles out. As it is quite late here I will let them stay for more than 16 hours until tomorrow. And than when I will come back I will test them in printer.

At opening of exposition where I show six of my recent prints I had a few interesting discussions. We spoke also about sale of prints, not only using Internet, but also in galleries, magazine and so. After thinking about this I decided to make some changes.


From today web shop is closed. It will be re-open 5th of April with all prints which are now in stock with 30% discount. This sale will last for about two weeks and than shop in form as it is now will be shut down.
New way of sale will starts from 1st May 2006. From that day every month only very few (1-5) prints will be offered for sale. The exact way of doing this is not determined yet. The reasons for this decision are various. Major is that my primary reason is not sale of photographs and it took too much of my time.

I believe that this is interesting way to go forward. I will have more time for creating photographs, while still you will have possibility to buy my prints. I see this as interesting experiment and I am very curious what will happen. Maybe nothing, maybe something. in any case I thank you all for your interest and to all of you who bought prints from me in last six month for your trust.

I have started fourteen days of sale out in my web shop. I checked out what prints are still available. Have found ten of them and there are now on the web shop for 35 euro each. I must say this is a last chance if you like to buy some prints from me this way. From 20th of April shop will be closed.
So all those ten prints are available, I just need to placed them in passe-partout and ship it to you. Check web shop pages for all detailed information about delivery, postage and more...

As I wrote earlier in this blog if I will ever sell prints again it will be different way. I am going to focus more on making photographs than selling them. I guess I will come back to this marketing thing, but it will be either different way or different time.

Something more than twelve hours from the start of last sale on my web shop, first print is sold out. "School Brushes". If it goes this fast, sale will be finish in less than one week. So still nine prints available!

OK second print in the first day is gone. This time it is " Christmas in Zilina". There is still last eight prints from old times.

When I was making these night shots (now in exposition until 28th of April), I was using tripod. I didn't use one for very very long time. Last time it must be over 20 years ago, when I was doing some staged photos in town with actors.
So I borrowed tripod from friend. I must say I was glad I could use it, you know those over two minutes exposure wouldn't be possible otherwise. This tripod is, well terrible, first it is for video and second is not very stable and difficult to use. So I am for few month already thinking about buying one. Now when two prints where sold yesterday, there is a chance I can buy one. Let's hope that few more prints will be sold in following13 days when the sale is over.

I am not thinking on any extrema tripods, but just simple, but decent manfrotto 055 prob with either 488/488RC2 ball head or with 322RC2 grip head. Difficult part is that I never used such a heads before and I have not really option to try them, before buying. Maybe you can tell me more if you ever did use these heads? Thanks in advance.

As you may know few days ago, almost two weeks, I have bought new printer, epson 2100. Last week I have received those incredible good inks from MIS. It is a few days already when every evening I am printing my old images with this new set. Yesterday I did small experiment when I use again Ilford Smooth Pearl paper and print on it using these UT7 inks. There is a few combination of inks you can use with this setup. I loaded into yellow position, where normally sepia toner resides Gloss optimizer. Special liquid which prints completely transparent but creates layer on the print, which is completely removing bronzing effect on glossy papers. So I did little test yesterday and it looked very good.
I am making sort of portfolio from my old print. Portfolio which I plan to present in some galleries, magazine and other places. One print which I had include in it today is "Way To a Neverland". As you can see is from most of the part quite dark. So it could be problematic on glossy paper and also the lighter part is exactly in such a black density which is very keen to bronzing effect on such a papers. I still have some sheet of A3+ from Ilford Smooth Pearl paper. So i try it out.

It is amazing no bronzing at all, nice deep blacks. Very very nice print. Only negative side is that this paper is not archival so it will stay only some 10-15 years without change. In any case this A3+ size is very nice as it is in 2:3 ration as negative and not 3:4 as other papers for ink jet printers. In this size this print is amazing, really you need to see it.

It seems that this good bye sell will be going in the same line as my whole half year of sale. And it is not only me who is selling only from time to time. Seems like one need to be first popular, known and than one can do any business here. It is probably very similar in other type of business. In art, I think, it works like that very much.

I was selling in last half year for very low prices, prices which gave me from 10-20 euro profit on picture. But I need to do few things which I do not calculate into this. You know spending time with matting each picture. Going to post office. Making sure that all prints are delivered and doing all that advertising work. It was useful for some part. My web site has now much more visitors that it has half year ago. But still, the way how did I sell and offer my prints, feels to me like when you would sell vegetables. Selling per kilo for dumping prices. A lot of work to get very little profit and satisfaction. The last is the most important to me. Somehow I have feeling that the print I produce is not appreciated. And that hurts.
Same like today! I brought my first A3+ size print to show my colleagues. You know it is not easy to transport A3+ sized print on bicycle in wind and rainy whether we have in The Netherlands. I did really take great care to transport it, so I can show it to them. Well, their attention was as long as five seconds. Yep, that could be also indication that they just do not like the picture and maybe they have enough of myself, as well. Bothering them every day with photo stories, thoughts and more. Who knows. In any case it doesn't do any good to me :-)

So in a short, these are the few reasons why I like to stop with selling of my prints in my web shop. I have last eight prints there, maybe somebody find them nice enough to invest some money. If not good, that is also the way to tell me that I need to go better.
And I will! I like the new work I produced in last two-three month. I like it very much. Six prints are now at exposition and seems to bring quite some attention.

Soon I will open new web site. That web site will be purely used for presentation of my last work and only the best of best will be presented there. No blog, no articles no news or monologs like these will be there. I plan to market that site as my top on-line portfolio. I am going to focus to produced more nice work, more abstract, but still with strong contents of symbols and feelings. I will try to contact galleries, magazines, photo contests and other means of expanding my work. It is something new which I never did and I am looking forward to it. And more of all I will be doing work which I enjoy the most, creative work!

You two who bought first two prints from my ten good bye set, I hope you will enjoy them and hope those prints will bring you piece of my enthusiasm about seeing world with black and white eyes.

Because I like to make some steps in a future I am doing little research on Internet about different photographers, agencies and magazine which I somehow bound to photography. I must say it is a quite a lot of crap out there, but also some very good things. Yesterday my friend Daniel Staver bring into my attention work of Rocky Schenck. Those incredible nice photographs bring you sort of melancholic and dream feelings. Look for example at this one Holland Park, isn't that gorgeous?
Than I have found web pages named deFocused. There is a plenty of pictures, some of them well. But some are really good. Like this one. I have feeling that most of the time this blurred hype is just a fashion. You know trendy thing. But if you use it well like it is used in Rocky Schenck work that it has the right effect. And as the deFocused site, many more, including myself, need to do much better editing work. And to show only the best. Little note at Gallery Hopper is excellent and short just about this topic.

Yesterday evening I have opened one issue of the LensWork magazine. There was excellent article about making a good result in short project. Making good plan and hard deadlines. The article is titled Lessons from Jazz: Two Experiments in Photographic Improvisation by Brooks Jensen. It is nice view how strict borders can trigger incredible intensity of creativity.

It is about ten days ago when I did little portrait session with lights. I have borrowed those lights already some months ago, but didn't really use them for more serious work than some testing. The portrait session was quite fun to do. I shot only one film, Fuji Across it was, but I did all things on tripod and did precise light measurement. I am going to develop this roll tonight, together with other roll of Fuji Across which was exposed by my little daughter. I bought for her old Yashica camera.

After I developed both Fuji Across negatives I was quite surprised. The one which I shot with lights and precise measurement of light is, as far as I can see now not very well exposed, mostly missing details in shadows. On other hand the one expose from half by Ema and half by me using Yashica Electro GSN is exposed perfectly. So tell me, isn't this indication that exact and prices things are limiting creativity and imagination. The old camera which has a simple meter can do better because you focus on image and not on technique. As a defense of portrait session I must say that is quite possible that Yashica Electro GSN would not do any better in that light conditions.
I will scan both films tomorrow so I guess there will be some new shots on site if they will be any good on these negatives. And now, good night!.

I couldn't go sleep at the end and I saw old film based on book "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. I like it quite a lot, but what strikes me and why I am writing about it is last scene. There those "book people" are walking in front of country with a lake. Snow is falling and some snow is on filed and lake. People in warm jackets are slowly walking in front of camera and from memory saying a book. They look like somebody is pronouncing poem just memorized. The feeling from this scene is so surreal, I like it a lot!

I have just produced print of Bathroom from Night Mood series. This print I did produced again on Ilford Smooth Pearl paper using UT7 inks with a GLOP (Glossy Optimizer) in yellow ink position. That wouldn't be that new but what I did I arranged photo on paper differently with some text around it. I saw this in LensWork magazine. In article by Brooks Jenses. That I have look at his web page and saw more examples how does he produce images and also how he sells them. I wrote, some time ago, some text about that myself based on his article from LensWork. Somehow, in this period, it comes very handy. I may just go same way how he is doing it.

And, by the way, the print looks very good. I will do for comparison prints on other different papers, just to have easier to see different media in action.

I went in last few hours of light into Rotterdam. I was looking for place I saw about four years ago. Some old docks on channel inside on of the suburbs of Rotterdam. I have found it and even found interesting places. Empty broken hall for ship reparation and some other abandon buildings. In one hall where few campers parking. I guess some homeless people leaving there. Unfortunately Sun gets down too quickly so I didn't make single shot. But now I know where it is and I can come easier back. Nice afternoon.

Yesterday I have printed one print from my Night Mood series in form I saw in LensWork magazine done by Brooks Jensen. I like it really a lot so I have printed, just for me, small version (A4 size) of my six print set of Night Mood. Now I have them and I like to show them to the people. They really look very nice and I am proud of them. So I took them in my daily work with such a simple though as to put them somewhere on the wall for people to see. This is always tricky thing. I do not know how it will be taken. I wouldn't mind to put them anywhere, where people would like to see them. But where?

Ideas about future selling of my prints are getting more and more defined. As I wrote earlier I really like ideas from Brooks Jensen, but there is still some things I do not like. I like to have some way to see how people appreciate, or not, my work. This can be done as feedback driven by the price. So I was thinking about eBay, where people have possibility to bid or not, for particular picture. maybe that would be idea that I would use eBay in regular intervals (4-8 weeks) and put few (1-3) latest prints theres.
Paul Politis notice me about interesting discussion in large format photography mailing list. The topic was Brooks Jensen on print pricing in LensWork. Some interesting views are expressed there, take a look if you interested in this area.

When things are not easy...

Today was so beautiful morning again, I love this sharp contrast light in fields and through the trees. Spring is really coming now. They start building again green houses on farm near by. Do you remember, some time ago I was taking picture of horse which use to be in place on my way to work. Today, after more than ten month, there is again horse, nice black one.

colleague of mine has bought Nikon D50 with DX AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:3.5-4.5G ED lens. I just had it in my hands. What I also did I brought my Nikon F100, just to compare few things like viewfinder, speed of focusing and general handling. I also was interested how AF-S lens will work on my Nikon F100. I know that comparing these two bodies is not completely right, but on other hand currently they are comparable by price when looking for F100 at second hand market.

Viewfinder of Nikon D50 is smaller, but has more contrast than on mine Nikon F100. The lack of contrast could be also caused by the fact that viewfinder on my camera could be just dirty a bit, but I do not think so. I must say I like the additional contrast on Nikon D50 and I wish my Nikon's F100 would have same contrast and clearness.
Handling of Nikon D50 is little bit tricky. My hands are on smaller size and they hardly fit in grip. My small finger has no place there. With mentioned Nikkor DX AF-S 18-70 mm 1:3.5-4.5 G ED lens there is also other problem. Camera has tendency to fall in front as the lens with its weight has moved the central of balance too much outside of camera body. That makes not comfortable feeling in the hand holding camera. When I have mount the lens on F100 it was just perfect and hand was not stressed at all even the total weight was higher. Mounting mine 50/1.8 Nikkor on D50 has the same effect, perfectly balanced camera.
Focusing on Nikon D50 with AF-S lens is fast and completely silent. Even photographer itself can hardly hear any sound. When same lens is mounted on mine F100 the focusing speed is same and sound is also close to nil. Little more is heard from body, but it is only little tick when focusing starts, which can be caused by by age of mine F100. Nikon D50 is focusing faster with 50/1.8 than with AF-S zoom mentioned here same is true for F100. AF-S lens is just a little slower than 50/1.8 AF-D. My Nikon F100 of course is limited as the AF-S lens is DX so I can see black corners and therefore amount of light coming into the camera is limited, but still it is enough to cover all focusing points.

As you may know I decided to end selling my prints from this web site. There is last eight prints available and time is running out with eight days to left.
I have some idea what could be possible to do in future with selling, but frankly for me it is not the priority. Few of these ideas are described in more details in my previous posts to this journal. One thing is certain, selling using web shop on my page will end after 19th of April.

My friend wrote in his small note today, after certain things happened yesterday, that the worst thing which can be is ungrounded optimism. It let me think a bit.
The exact things which happened yesterday could happen to everybody of us any time, but to count on thing like well-founded optimism, which I could call certainty doesn't exists. The optimism in its base is uncertain, I would say. But this feels like philosophizing too much. He wrote it based on reality which happened yesterday. Those facts turn around everything we were hoping for and we were welcoming to something which is not very nice and pleasant, but what is happening in every moment. It is not really important what was it, what I think is important is that these are the thing which one as artist should focus on. Things which touch everybody at certain moment.

By creating work which can help people to overcome such a difficult time or show that they are not alone in their state of mind. That I think is very important. Human as individual is very very alone. There are few things which can breaks those barriers and create connection between people. Art is one of them so why waste it for stupid things.

I do not do portraits or any family photos for somebody else. This case our friends ask me so I did. This picture is great example how good Fuji Neopan Across 100 can look when shot at 50ASA and developed in Paterson Aculux 1:9 for 9 min. On a print is also possible to see great way how cheap Nikkor 50/1.8 handles unfocused part of image. So called boeke.

As the things has change we need to modify our plans and I started with some heavy house rebuilding already yesterday. So I am whole day busy with breaking and constructing new walls and similar things. It is quite possible that I will be not posting much in coming two days. But please do not forget there is only last four days to buy print. Oh you do not know where, well in my web shop which will be gone after those four days.
In a mean while I would like to thank Daniel Staver for his never ending help with creating ICC profiles for my papers, UT7 and epson 2100. Hopefully I will have some money (if I sell those last prints) to buy scanner and than I can make them myself. So I am testing those printing testing strips and some images. It is very interesting and almost every day I bother Daniel with my questions. He must be happy as I skip today ;-)

As good as this last sale starts that bad it continues. I still have eight last print for sale. In less than 48 hours my web shop will cease existence. What will come after is still not clear yet. Even I do have some ideas, the plan is not clear yet and decisions are not made.

Certain is only one there will be no more sale on my web shop and future prints for sale, if any, will be very very limited. Not only by volume, but also by choice, time and by price as well.

So it seems, if miracle is not going to happen in following 16 hours, I will have no money to buy tripod as I have planned.

Thank you very much Jeff and Andre for purchasing two of my last prints. I hope you will enjoy them for long time.

So that was it my half year sale experience on Internet. Well not all days are gone, but now different topic is up to me. Photography! Manager and sales man is taking camera again and let's produce some nice pictures.

Once more, thank you all who purchase print from me in last six month. I hope you enjoying them. Please keep a close look at this journal for new pictures and other hopefully interesting views as the journey through the life with black and white eyes continues!

I was planning to do this for a while now. From today you can enjoy new front page. I will probably add more info and more boxes in coming days. I would appreciate your comments and opinions.
Yes I have noticed that after closing my web shop, mail link in header is not working anymore. For the moment please use my email address which you can find there instead in kind of anti spam form. I hope you can decoded. Soon I will provide simple web form interface to allow to send me short messages. Until than use your mail client please.

It is a while I was thinking to put web site with my name in it. All other top level domains where occupied or where too expensive. And than couple of month ago I have read somewhere that new .eu domain is going to me open. I have register www.richard-vanek.eu as my web site. As it is up only one day, there is nothing much there. But this is part of my plan to let my work make known little more. I possibly wrote little about earlier, I am planning to make that site very clean and contains only the best of best from my images. It will be use as my representation on Internet, while www.piskoftak.com will stay as place of experiments talks and other source of daily information and images. I believe it is good to make it like this.

What I am really curious, when my new site will have a real contents, how fast it gets recognized by google and other powerful forces on Internet.

We were visiting Sunday morning Caroline Schroeder and Hape Smeele in their house in Hilversum. We had a very nice chat and coffee in garden at the morning sun. We discussed a lot about photography and how to go further with mine. I have got useful advises and offer for helping to make my great selection from whole my work. We decided to make first preliminary selection of 30-50 shots and discus that in one month and place it down to around 15 photographs. At the same time I will go to look for nice place where my first solo exposition in Netherlands could be.

Hello, I would like to ask you for a little help. I am trying some new design for my new www.richard-vanek.eu site. I would really appreciate if you can test it and let me know how it works. Especially I am interested on Apple platform and Linux. Also would be nice if some of you a re using Opera or other less common browsers. Try also if you can navigate just by pressing keys, 'n'-next 'p' previous, 'c' or 'x' close.
Thank you very much.

Oh my god, people, I am tired. I was whole day making walls in new two rooms flat. I do not know how do you call it, but you know you have raw wall and you want to make it nice and flat. Yesterday friend of mine was putting electricity there. So as you can see I am still not finished with this rebuilding. That is why I have no time to go and shoot some pictures for the book as I was planning. But I hope in one week it all will be done. After wall are ok, I need to paint them and than put the wooden floor and on one half wall wood. Than it will be half done. But my work will be finished. In one of the room somebody has to come to make two windows on attic and put new heater. Those are tasks I do not dare to do myself.
I have no idea how it is in your country but here in The Netherlands it is often that people do most of the things their selfs. I am not extra handy but I try hard. It goes quite well and at the end I think I will be proud that I made those two rooms for my children myself.

Amazing when you imagine how many people are working in this building with hundreds windows. They all are linked with satellite dish to the rest of the world. I like the sharp winter light. Shot was take in Stockholm, Sweden in January 2003.

Somehow I miss it and I feel sorry that for so long time I didn't put new picture. I am using IMatch for my archives and I have bunch of shots selected there. Shots on which I would like to take better look. I pick up this one now. I did this shot back in 2003 when I was using Voigtlander Bessa R2 with Ultron 35/1.7 lens.

Sometimes things get brighter. Yesterday I have received mail from Japan, telling me that my new web site www.richard-vanek.eu is rendering ok in his browser. And he also purchased by email three prints. Two of them I never offer for sale, so I need to work on them. It is nice when people like my work to such a extend that they invest money in it.
I am very glad, maybe at the end I will be able to finance my new tripod anyway ;-) Now, work is in front of me.

My friend from The Norway has updated his web site daniel.staver.no. He use to have nice black and white dramatic views. Now you can enjoy his great romantic color shots with a slice of drama in them. I like his work very much. Feels very dreamy and brings nice feelings. And not forget to take his RSS feed in your feed reader.
His site also contains curves for printing with epson 2100/2200 printer and QTR RIP with ink sets from MIS.

Yesterday when I was scanning 'Offices in the North' photo I realize fact which was clear to me already for long time. Not that it would be surprising, but it pop-up so strongly yesterday that I like to write about it.
The above mention photo was exposed on Kodak TMY film and developed in Kodak XTOL 1:1 developer. I use to work with this combination for quite some years. As far I remember 2003 was last year, than I have switched to Fuji Neopan and Paterson Aculux II. SO the photo was so grainy that it surprised me a lot. TMY is good film and Xtol is known for lower grain capabilities. As I scan it I realize that shot was underexposed quite a lot. It is difficult to say but one or one and half stop more would help a lot. And that I think was the fact why grain pop-up so strongly there. On several message boards you can find never ending discussion about which developer which film and asking for examples times. It all has no sense. Important thing is to understand how you camera work and work with same developer and film for at least 50 rolls to get it all known. Experiment and think why you have got what you did. Only that can teach you what to do to get result you like.
Yes certain films/developer combination have very specific characteristics which can be more appealing, but if you do not know that combination you do not necessary have to get it. And it doesn't matter that somebody who shows you shot was successful. You need to really try it and think.
I learn a lot by doing a lot of shots. And even I am talking here analog photography, in digital world the principal is the same.

I, for example, was using one camera for longer time and was getting nice results on Kodak 125PX film. Really great. I than switch to different camera and results where different. I say myself what is the problem. I did test, try and realize that old camera was giving almost half to one stop more exposure than new one. So it means if new is exposing Kodak 125PX as 125 ASA film, the old one was handling it as 64 ASA film. And than I realize that my development times I used for the same film are shorter that suggested by Kodak. And I try to set new camera and gave half stop more exposure and I have got the same nice results.

In this case it was camera in other case it can be different water, temperature, the way how you agitate tank, or you use different tank, Thousands things. All are more or less important, but to get what you want you need to try and experiment! So go on and enjoy those few minutes of waiting until surprise came out of the tank.

Today Hape Smeele came to take few shots of me and Viera for magazine where we will be interviewed next week. I know Hape for some time and it was nice to see him working. Really interesting to see things from other side. Being photo object today I have realized how difficult it can be sometimes for people who are photographed. In any case it was very interesting afternoon and we had very nice chat before and after with green tea and later with perfect "citronade" with mint leafs.