Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

I like to thank you all who express trust in me and who supported me, with either buying my work or with writings and talking. Thank you very much from all my heart. The end of last year was very successful for me. With my solo exhibition, publishing a book, few interviews in newspapers and magazines as well as sales.

There are a lot of plans in my head for this new year. Hopefully some of them will turn true. I wish you all a lot of nice bright days so you year 2008 is even better than passed years.

Last year I tried to get in PhotoBlog awards. This attempt was not successful as I entered the competition far too late. New one is already opened and if you vote for me in 2007 and you still like my images, you can vote again. You do not need to create new ID there.

For all you votes in 2008 I thank you very much in advance.

In the middle night, sky was bright, full moon shines, water can't be still.

As you may know one of my photos was used last year on "GRAFFITI SCULPTOR" book cover. When we returned from holiday earlier this week, I have found package with two books. So here it is final form of the book which is using my photo on its cover. Second image is showing back side of the book.

Look at her! So confident, so beautifull,.... Summer, Italy

Hot day in Italy, cold water helps to cool feet so she can walk further. Further to where?

Maybe you remember my post Problem with photos from second half of December 2007. That post I really wrote to share my opinion and somehow I was expecting reaction. Well I didn't receive anything.
Every morning when I am sitting in car and driving those forty kilometers to my daily job I have ideas in mind. A lot of time it is about writings to this blog. Only rarely, and this month almost no, I write something from it here. I discover my old micro recorder and I just talk it in. Question is do I going to listen it any time soon? Who knows. There are numerous plans, with time it is not so optimistic.

So every morning I am thinking should I write it there or should not?

Waves of a see and waves of the earth. Together in contrast. Man and woman together in contrast,

Normally, there is a around 150 visitors on my page daily and they view in average 1500 pages which makes around 4000 hits. Yesterday it all become in one hour five times more. And why? Somebody marked my site at stumbleupon.com. Not only that but also include my image in their blog. In one hour more persons did the same and it has this kind of chain reaction effect. I was glad until I looked at statistics more in details. Than I saw only this image directly linked was visited only two percent of people actually come to my site to see more. And than average ten pages per visitor drops to two pages per visitor.

And now I am here alone...

I have modified page which display my images. The layout of information is a slightly different and style of presentation has changed a bit as well.
The major difference is that i have added possibility to rate my images. You may ask why? Well I was thinking about it a bit. The primary reason is that I like to give you viewers a bit more option to participate on this site, create a bit more social feeling. So now you could not only write a comment to each photograph, but you can rate each as well. When there is enough ratings I will display the top rated images on front page ;-) You can always explain your rating in comment, I would actually appreciate that a lot.
I wish you nice weekend!

We have just returned from Amsterdam where Christine Otten introduced her new book "Als Casablanca". It was very nice evening and I will write more about it tomorrow. I may include some impressionistic photo from my PDA ;-)

As I wrote yesterday we went with Viera last Sunday to the "MelkWeg" i n Amsterdam for introduction show of the new book "Als Casablanca" by Christine Otten. Almost two years ago Christine did interview for magazine with me and Viera. That time we promised each other that we will keep in touch. Well it didn't happen, but than even more I was very nicely surprised by her email informing us that she will be presenting her new book soon.
There was no question about it. We decided to buy tickets and drive to Amsterdam. We had very nice afternoon and evening there. Evening start with her interview on podium and that Christine read a piece from the book. Subject of the book sounds very interesting. I didn't read it yet myself, but from the evening I understood that book describes group of the people meeting together in Detroid, city where they feel as strangers and everybody has new chance to discover your old yourself or just start building your own image/life from scratch.
I may be rather wrong about this. I certainly will mofidy this after I read the book and maybe Christine will comments on these lines ;-) Who knows?
The evening unfolds into few more numbers on stage including guest comic talks and musical performance of excellent singer and guitarist. I guess Christine was rather surprised when she saw us while signing copy of the book for us.
We stayed for little longer hoping that we could talk to some more interesting people there, but as we didn't know anybody we just talk to each other, had few drinks and than say goodbye and left for dinner. We find this very pity, earlier, well long time ago when we still lived in Slovakia we use to be in contact with a lot of people for cultural circles, now in The Netherlands we are completely out. We certainly promised each other to visit actions like this more often and acquire ourself with cultural life in Amsterdam much more then we do now.

So you left, left for no reason. I know you just didn't know what road to take so you took none. I know it can be difficult in this journey of the life. I know you do not know what you did. But in case you turn the clock back...

I have made few improvements on site today, hopefully it will reflect on faster loading times and better google rank position.

I am playing with creating video with my images. Idea is to create audio interview and play images at the same time. Later maybe some more sophisticated projects. This is my first attempt so bear with me. The video is about 3:20 long. I would appreciate your comments.