Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

Cold water, with bare feets in it. Looking into mud water, hoping for miracle...

Today morning while driving I was listening BBS RADIO 3 podcast where Wim Wenders was talking about changing America to cultural stagnation and how much he appreciate now culture richness of Europe. He was talking about provincialisms and lost of power to define future in places like New York and Los Angeles, he liked in eighties.
I was wondering than how interesting is to work and meet different people. Everyday I have chance to be with people from different countries, people who speaks different languages. I like that very much and I wouldn't like to become isolated.
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Just a today early morning thought I finally wrote down.

So today afternoon I borrowed Nikon D300 and will have two days with it to get my feelings sorted a bit about this possible digital camera for me. For now I can tell you my first impressions.
It is incredibly similar to Nikon F100 I am using currently. Weight is almost the same. Viewfinder is as bright as F100 but feels more contrast, it is of course smaller (DX, FX). And the shutter is quite nosier that shutter of my F100 including film advance. What I found very strange is that my Nikon 28/2.8 AF-D lens can not be used with aperture ring. I needed to set it to F22 and have to use the wheels to set aperture. Very disappointing, I thought that camera of this caliber should not have this limitation. I need to look more into it. (Added 3.Apr: Of course option in menu and I have set it back to Aperture ring and it is working).
Here are few shots of Nikon D300 and F100 next to each other. Some more reports and possible images will follow soon. I have camera until Saturday morning.

Sometimes is like today. Day when a lot of people leave comments. I like that very much, it really feels like when you visit me. I would like to have chat more with you, have a cup of tea. Look at some photographs and just enjoy each other company. In this digital age it is quite rare. What a pity. So I am very glad that you leave comments.
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I have spent today my first day with capturing images with Nikon D300. It feels very good as I said yesterday it is just my F100 in digital coat. Feels very natural. I have imported first 300 images I have shot today into Lightroom 2.0 beta. Didn't play much with it. I was planning to take a look close look on images in my Picture Window Pro editing program, but have find time for that yet. I like to see all what possible with camera. Shoot with all Nikkor lenses today I have 28/2.8 50/1.8 and 85/1.8. The tokina zoom 20-35/2.8 is for tomorrow same as little surprise to all of you and possibly to me if the weather allows it.

When we met first time he was so shy, esspecialy when I pointed my camera on him, but than just few moments later he was kid again.

I went today to the same place I have captured this image. I used Nikon D300 and plan to make similar set of images as I made not that long ago with analog cameras. The point it was how comfortable I will be feeling while making those images and also to have material I can work lately to produce the final set of images. So in short to have real life example with option to compare. Of course lighting was not exactly same, but close enough. It is warmer now than two month ago and I didn't have today sharp sun but overcast day. In any case I have not a big problem with that. This is not in any case scientific comparison.

This is the image from digital camera which I worked on very shortly. I may replace it later with proper one. For now this is quick comparison between result produced by film camera and digital camera.

I guess this was one last summer cigarette in this hut at the lake. Now is spring and hut looks like nobody was here except the black cat.
BTW: This image is created from Nikon D300 captured color raw file.

Dust of all the passed days.

Today it was raining while I was on highway, well most of the time standing still in traffic jam, because of the rain, but you know that already, it was raining today, while I was....

It started so nice, but than something happen and I felt not good anymore. It is almost over now. One has to learn whole life, right?
Than we started next building phase in hour house kitchen, it was done in record two days. Still some small finishing touches needs to be done, but I was already cooking yesterday ;-)
And than week is almost gone. Sometimes it just goes so fast. I hope I will have time this weekend to write my observation from last week use of Nikon D300. I need to do it for myself, to summarize and thing it through once more.
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And the last big news: We will get a dog. Kids are crazy about it. Tomorrow we going to take our new puppy :-)

While wondering in forest I saw these dry leaves from last year. There where so alone in whole forest without a leaves.

Trying color image, something a bit more abstract but still a bit real to give feeling of autumn overcast day in a forest.

There was not so much reaction as I expected when I published yesterday my color image. It is actually rather interesting to know a bit of history behind this image. Originally I made very similar image using analog Pentax MX photo camera and 50mm 1.2 (I believe) lens some eight year ago. That time I borrowed that camera from father of my good friend.
I loved that image a lot, now when I think about it I may post it as well later. When I borrowed Nikon D300 lately I suddenly realize that I am on the same place I made that original image. So I try to make same one now with different camera. Now it was far much easier as I could see on back LCD how does it turned out.

I would really like to know what do you think about it, let me know even if you think that I should stop with color images right a way :-)

As you know I am not that often here and lot of you asked me to keep in touch. I would love to and so I suggested that best is to subscribe to my RSS feed. That comes to some more or less complex problems.

I have solution for you who like to keep in touch with me and would like to know what new images I published lately. You can subscribe to my RSS using your email. I am using FeedBurner email gateway for that. It is as simple as clicking to this link.

It will bring you to FeedBurner page where you can use your email to subscribe to new from me. You will receive little email every time I publish something new. And of course you can unsubscribe nay time you like.

BTW: Feedburner was acquired by Google ;-) so you can safely use your gmail address if you have any.

And for you who doesn't like using your email, well use your RSS capable browser or feedreader and subscribe directly

As you can see on the picture commenting activity is rising. I am very glad that so many people find time and writes they opinion on my photographs. As you may imagine it is quite inspiring when you see that my creation brings memories or creates thoughts in other people's mind.
Even to see my images on your screen over the internet is different than come to gallery and see them in real, but how many people would come to gallery per day? And how many would leave a comment? I am glad that you find way to my internet pages.
From now on you can use your email to get notified maximal once per day about new photos and thought published on these pages. You can subscribe by clicking on following image.


Once more thank you for your support!
-richo-

She was playing with the umbrella all the time and her mother was visiting the cemetery. She had a lot of fun balancing with it.

In Tokyo, Japan, 2007

I made this image back in 2001 with borrowed Pentax MX camera and 50/1.2 lens. Few years ago (last week) I made similar image with the same idea. Now you can compare.

Another variant of the same scene made on this photograph.

This server was not available today between 7:00 and 9:00 GMT. This down time was caused by loss of connectivity of my hosting provider. please excuse it. I am really sorry that this has happen, but there is very little I can do about it. I can move my server to other one, but who is going to guarantee that the same thing is not going to happen there?

Tokyo, Japan, 2007 And yes when I went there nobody could speak English. Than the older lady at right asked the young girl in the middle communicate with my by drawings hands and five English words. At the end I bought pack of tea I am enjoying up today.

I was just browsing around when found following text. It has made my day and may do the same for you so I like to share it.

"It is not convenient to discuss with the idiots. They drag you to their level and then beat you with experience"

In a last few days I was busy among of other thing also with looking at internet pages of photographers. I must say mostly photographers. There are few good but most is just daily snapshots. I guess it is ok, that is what actually photo blogging means. A lot of times it was that few images where very good and than most not and also there where not continuation in theme style in nothing actually.
I wrote about that earlier and was pointing that I have the same problem and that is why I create my portfolio page. And I think I will go further and will do the very similar thing for this page as well, but I will keep it more on level of photo blogging.

Today I received message from German street photography collective with request to place their link on my pages. Normally I do not do that, usually I place links only to photographers of which work I like for longer time. Well I went to their web site and I found some very nice street work. And therefore I decided to put their link on my pages.

As my neighbor pointed out yesterday "you are again in the press" and I find out that the small two page article about street photography I made for Benelux magazine ZOOM is now in newsstands. So maybe that link to this German group of photographer can be useful also to people who read this article.

And she was like that, like a butterfly on her leg. She was softly flying everywhere and I just watch her for all the time...

Today I have received comment number hundred in this month. It is incredible how much comment activity happened this month. Look at the graph it looks like something must happen on internet that my site becomes certainly more visible, or is it that you people just decided to show your opinion.
Also little game called voting seems to be taking from the ground. There is minimum six rating needed before the link is showing in this top table overview. I am using this JS-Kit. Problem is that as far as I know I can not access raw data in XML or other format. I need to use their javascript to display this and it doesn't really look as I would like it to look. In any case here is up to now table with top rated images:

Down the head on the swing, in full speed. Not sure anymore if it is such big fun as at the start. But it doesn't matter, all will be fine once she is back on ground. In next second she will try another crazy thing.

You tell me the story now. Tell me what you see, what you imagine, what is in your mind, while looking at this image.

The way is decided now only start and jump