Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

Air is cold and a bit wet, Sun is falling down. We watching it and its way is the same as ours. We stay a bit while and than in dark we walk down the fields to the village, alone. Sun is now on the other side, we are alone.

So many eyes, but none of them are the real.

or just we making it so? Probably all what we have is made by ourself. So I am not going to complain. I surely could made different choices and that I would be complaining about other.
Now you will have a break from me talking rubbish for a few days. Try to make good choices so your life is not so difficult and you can enjoy the time while you have it, the life.

I know this image is small, but try to count and tell me how many birds you can see on image.

Several hundred years ago, she was looking from the same place. Where is she now and where is he?

I just get information that tomorrow my provider will upgrade php4 to php5 and mysql4 to mysql5. As it seems it will bring certain problems and I haven't been able to fix them yet. So part of the site will be not working tomorrow properly. I am going to try my best to fix it until than, but I am ill for the third day and with fever I have now not sure I will be able to sit behind computer longer than a hour or two.
----
Update few hours later. Hopefully I have fixed the major problems. Interesting was that all problematic part where in MySQL 5 and not in PHP5. I would really appreciate if you let me know if something is not working as expected. Thank you in advance.
----
Update few minutes later: I just realize that my web hosting provider will do that update next week not this week as I understood in my fever. So we still have week to go :-) Excuse me for this, the whole reality is for me now changed into one looong, slow motion, dream.

Much as a my day today. Like a dream, nothing is really sharp, all is in a kind of fog. Not sure what has really happen and what is only in my brain made by fever.

Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day?
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you?
Does anybody else here
Feel the way I do?

(c) Roger Waters/Pink Floyd

As if would time stop, oh no time is ok it is only me who perceive of it slows. It all feels now brighter and cleaner.
So I sit here in Sun lighten kitchen and enjoying from its sharp shine. In my mind though is hanging "Why so late, why now?" Yes! why only now when fever flood my body and driving my head. Why only now I sense life as I would only be born little while ago.

The feeling walking out of the tunnel, exactly the feeling as one would walk out from gray monotonic flatness and come to colorful world. I had exactly same feeling quite few years ago, when I walked out from military base to the town. And after all the green and gray I saw colorful girl\'s skirt. As if would my life in last years was only empty walk in monotonic hunt for food and satisfying raw needs.

It feels like all is only question of point of view. I recognize it only now when I have possibility to see it from distance of time, when time flow is more important than what I will be eating tomorrow.
I feel great in this by sun brightened kitchen. I would sit here maybe forever. I am only afraid that same think could happen and this kitchen would change its nice warm and bright feel to the gray tunnel without a single spark.

And that is exactly why I write these lines, so I would not forget, so I would later, sitting in the tunnel, remember that all is only question of point of view and all can be changed. It is only necessary to be able to look from different angle and not always it has to be fever which will force us to observer white bright walls, where shadows are moving slowly while our brain is thinking where we were yesterday and why.

---
Translated from original text in Slovak language published here

And so after I exchange few email yesterday with Jacco I decided when I will feel better I will develop those 120 film we exposed at the cold winter morning together few weeks ago.
And yes day has come and only with coughing I felt quite ok today morning so I have developed them. And? What you think? They look fabulous!!! Not sure if it is by the square format, huge area of negative or whatever I know, but they just feel great. If I feel still ok I will develop later today 3 Agfa APX400 I exposed on the same day on same subject and than I can see if it is film, camera, or just my mind.
---
I hope my flatbed scanner is still ok as I didn't use it for over year. If yes I could scan those images soon.

Do you feel that cold, and wet smell of ground under your knees? You who still have seven years and playing so long outside. Who has ground behind your nails. All friends are gone now, but you still have not enough of that summer late night smell on fields. Somehow you know than later when you become adult you will miss it...

I bought this scanner about one and half year ago. Use it maybe ten to twenty times. Now I tried to scan those 6x6 negatives form 120 film and gues what? It is not working. On each scan it gives white, yellow,red,blue spectrum overlay from left to right.
I email Canon yesterday and returned useless suggestion back. I called them and very surprise I have got almost immediately somebody on line. But she just move it to second line support, 48 hours working day response (Monday maybe Tuesday). So I called service organization for them here in The Netherlands, no they do not repair scanner only move them to Germany. So no luck there. 150 euros for nothing. How can such a thing be produced? I didn't shake it or hit it it is here next to my negative scanner (which is working perfectly for 4 years) and doing nothing. Noe I need it and it doesn't work!!!
So I will wait. In mean while Jacco is going to help me with his Epson V700 (am I correct Jacco?) to scan those 24 images I took on Kodak 125 PX 120 film .

---
BTW: Images are cool I already have some 100 shots from my Agfa APX 400 film scanned and there are some brilliant shots.
BTW 2: If you wonder why all those strange films. Well those all are couple (some 10) years expired films I have received for free from friends and use them just for fun. Maybe I would wish I would have good film instead when I do high resolution scans :-( Who knows.

This is first image from new series I am preparing now. You can take this as kind of teaser. When I have at least three images I will show them all together.

After one week being ill and home I am back in working chains ;-) I must say it feel not good to wake up at 5:30 if you not in bed from 21:00. But anyway I am in good mood and hopefully I will be soon able to finish my remake of www.richard-vanek.eu where I will be displaying my work in form of projects or how other people call it closed art bodies of work. What it means is simply achieve a presentation of my photographs grouped to the presentation which would express certain theme and would be more powerful than presenting stand alone photograph.
I will announce it here when it is full finished.

So it seems my site is now running on Apache2, php5 and MYSQL5. I would like to ask you for help, if you notice that something is not working as before, please let me know using contact link in right top part of the page.
Thank you in advance for your help!
-richo-

This is certainly not for me. Wake up at 5:30 and working for 8-9 hours. Not sure why but somehow it is just less and less pleasing ;-) Use to be time when I enjoyed that, but not anymore. Far more I enjoy quiet time when I have space to think and plan the things. Maybe it is only that early waking hour what is killing me.
In any case, the lack posting of images in last few days is caused by my work on renewing my other site www.richard-vanek.eu. Soon it will be online and I believe with interesting approach to my work. Approach I was promising for a while. Images displayed in project and not as isolated items.

I have been fasting today same as last week Friday. Not sure why I do it, but I guess I have kind of feeling to clean my body once a while. And have it on Friday feels all right. I started with it last week at the end of my illness and I believe also under influence a book I was reading. To not eat whole day, actually more than 24 hours is easier than I expected. IT is actually more difficult to control your discipline than to fight against feel of hunger.
Did you ever try it? I want to continues like this for few weeks and than try once to make three days fast.

I had nice email conversation today with Dave Beckerman about digital cameras. He made his second service, if I may call it like that, to the world of digital photography. He is using Canon 40D with nice 30/1.4 lens. I am in touch with Dave for over eight years and I feel very often same way as he does. So I just may declare that after I finish my 150 meters of Fuji Neopan and 5 liters of Fotospeed FD10 I may try my first attempt to go to digital world. I need also sell some of my work to finance that journey. So if you like my work you can support me by considering some of my work for purchasing.
Thank you ;-)

I have just uploaded new version of my project web site www.richard-vanek.eu. That web place is dedicated to presentation of my work in projects. It is my attempt to express something in more images.
I would really appreciate to know what do you think about. You can also see there seven new images never published in my latest wood & water project.

Lying just like that, one behind the other under the moon light. Waiting for warmer summer days when people take them from cold frozen grass and put them on the wooden terrace where they will all together enjoying sun set into the lake.

Empty, with dirty window, reflecting reflection from water. Inside cold table, dirty floor and dust everywhere. Will they come back in summer?

I am thinking to produce second limited edition of my book "Remembering Childhood" and offer it for sale in my photography store.
I made hardcover and soft cover version last year in November after exposition of the same work in Slovakia. Both version where sold out very fast and some I give as presents.
I do not expect to produce huge amount of them so I would like to ask you in advance for notifying me in case you would have interest to purchase one. The price for soft cover version will be €24.95 and for hardcover €44.95, both prices including postage without insurance ( €10 extra if you choose for it).
Here is few images from hard cover version, I will post later some images of soft cover version.

1. Images from my "Remembering Childhood" project are in.
2. Size is 28.5cm wide and 22cm high.
3. With hard cover which is in black linen.
4. Tone of images is nice warm black.

After I have published two chairs image on Thursday I was kind of proud. I like that image very much. I like the way it leads observer eye based on lighten and sharp part of the image from foreground to background, while darker and off focus part in left front and right bottom corners are not disturbing, just opposite are underlying the focused part.
In the same mood I have published Hut by the lake yesterday. This last image has similar mood and tone, but it is not as strong as two chairs. In any case somehow I like these images quite a lot. They express my mood in last weeks quite well. I will, if time allows, upload next image to conclude this moody series.
I would appreciate your comments on these images.