Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

Again few days past and I haven't really time to write here much. I need to fix this. There is a lot of going on and I just do not write note of it. For most of you I guess it will be not much of interest.

I have connect my Minolta DImage 5400 scanner to my notebook and surprise surprise, is about 3x faster now and no timeouts or stopping. Works great. I believe I leave it like this, but it seems that more and more functionality I am moving out of my desktop, now 2x933MHz Pentium III. Few years ago I though that having double processor CPU machine will be very powerful and exciting to use, but as years go I see only reliability problems. Software is not ready for these 2 CPU machines. Maybe Linux as server will work more reliably on it, but Win2k or WinXP client software has a lot of problems with different hardware and that makes all machine quite a unreliable.
I am using it now only for managing my photographs, editing and printing them.

So as my scanner is working so nice now I scanned all Fuji Across again and will compare and print now. I let all adjustment done by vuescan so it is fully automatic for the best balance. I see already that differences are interesting.

I have also solved the problem with generating incorrect RSS feed, where modification date was taken into account instead of creation time. I may soon have another addition and that is title for each journal note, but let's wait a second for that :-)

I have received envelopes I have ordered few days ago through local paper store. There were so nice to order it for me. I wasn't allowed to order them myself from producer as they only deal with shops. They look very good, I can fit four matted prints in one envelope. It is strong enough with nice hard edges. Should work great.

Friend of mine visited us today with family and he took a look at my web shop and gave me some nice suggestions. He is working in marketing so he had good eye on possible problems.

Time is flying, we are about to go on holiday and I still need to do quite a few things. My first ebay offers has been sold. No, they were not prints. I started my ebays experience with selling some old hardware. After holiday I will try to sell some of my cameras, as I like to buy new lens and I have quite a few equipment I am not using at all.

I still need to prepare films for holiday, put Fomapan 100 and Fuji Neopan 1600 to the cans by 36 shots from 30.5 meter roll. I am expecting to do some serious amount of shooting at my holiday time. I am going to Slovakia and will meet some old friends. I am really looking forward to it.

Yesterday after long hot day, I remake my darkroom. Well you know for me it is just a place where is total dark so I can put films into tank or as I did yesterday, place 30.5 meter roll into machine for loading cartridges. So I made 19 rolls of Fomapan 100 from 30.5 roll of that film. I was planning to add Neopan 1600 as well but was very late (01:00 morning) and I was so tired that I asleep in 3 minutes after I found myself in a bad.

We are leaving tomorrow and I am expecting to have some internet access even not all the time, but do I need that? No I do not. I have another priorities. I like to relax and make some nice series of photos.
Unfortunately I will be not able to put any new photos on web before we leave tomorrow and so that it stays for next few weeks. But what you can expect are my stories from travel around. Every time I will have possibility to access web I will write them here.

It is again late night, but I am ready now.I have rolled 20 rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600 from 30.5m package of film. I find it so funny when rotating that small handler on bulk loader. Feels like in fifties. I have got about 30 rolls of 100ASA, 10 of 400ASA and 20 rolls of 1600ASA films. I moved them to carrying freezer and in about five hours we are leaving.

Greetings from Prague. I am visiting our friends and we have spend nice day in this beautiful city. You can imagine, nice sunny day walking in old nice city full of tourists. We try to walk on paces were normal people are living and trying to find authentic corners.

I have a little difficulties to access Internet. Not that I can't find Internet cafe, but I would like to connect mu notebook directly and that seems to be not possible. Maybe I find place later. We expecting to visit few places and have plans for Saturday to go to Poland just for one day.

Today I have made phone call to Andrej Ban. I would like to meet him and talk with him about the way photographer is taking reality around and show him some of my pictures as well. He is on holiday now so I supposed to call him Sunday again. I am wondering how this will go, I have no idea why but somehow I am expecting quite a much from this meeting. But I have also experience from the past that none of such a things which we expecting much are turning like that in reality.

Today we went to our town of origin, Zilina. I was wondering what has change here after quite some time we were here last time. And again my expectation are clashing with reality. I have no idea why, but I always expecting nice quiet city as it used to be when I was young. But one see only huge building activities, roads in quite bad state and everything is half broken. The worst people seems to be accepting this and walking between fences around construction sites. Summer cinema, which used to be kind of symbol for summer is now totally destroyed and I have heart that huge 27 floor building is going to be build there. Terrible.
Only one island is still holding its place from the past. And that is one bookstore. This is a small place in the center of the city with very good selection of the books, covering not only beletrie but also philosophy and esoteric literature. It has a that kind of calm atmosphere which let you think about important things. All this is underlined with a nice cafe under this bookstore where you can get great up of espresso coffee.

I have bought two books today here (normally I buy much more but somehow I feel different today). One book is from Slovak writer I like for many years and it is great that he is still writing books even now. I bought his last books from this year. His name is Jan Johanides. Second book I have bought is kind of photo diary book about Slovak painter Vincent Hloznik. I like the stile and photos in this book. I do not particularly like his painting, but I also do not dislike them. Why I choose this book is the style how it is done. Photo diary book seems to be very open and personal at the same time.

I have found Internet connection where I actually can connect my own notebook to the Internet. It is nice small shop in the middle of the Namestovo. Young personal has no problem with plunging me to their network. They offer inet cafe at the first floor, but they hook me to the net at their shop. I believe I will visit them more often.

I have found yesterday at photo shop in Zilina Ilford Pan 100ASA film for nice price 2.5 euro. I will consider to buy more. Unfortunately I have no possibility to develop it here to see how it is, but maybe I will buy few more rolls and than order 100ft roll later if I like it.
Today we have plans to visit out grand father. Maybe you remember picture "following the boss" and few more I have taken at the village where he is living. Maybe I can make few more.

Friday we have move to capital of Slovakia, Bratislava. I was there last time about six years ago. I never really stay longer than I need for transport across or few hours walking in the old center. Quite a few of my friends moved to capital in the last six years and we had plans to visit two of them.
I also was expecting that I will meet photographer Andrej Ban. We had agreed that I will give him a call once I am in Bratislava. That it how it happens and we planed to meet 14:30 in pub connected to STOKA theater. As I wasn't sure how long it will take me to get there I end up 20 minutes earlier drinking cold KOFOLA inside of the pub, while outside heat was rising up to 36C. This and next day were two the most hottest days of this summer. Andrej arrived almost 15 minutes later than we agreed and immediately told me that in next 15 minutes two other photographers will come and he need to make kind of interview with them. After that we talked about my situation in photography and he look through the photographs. After little while two others and after next half hour next person joined us. Andrej was conducting his interview and I was listening (with interest I must say). All our meeting end after about two hours when Andrej and myself left rest of the group in pub and head to bookstore where I later bought book which maps documentary photography in Slovakia from 1989 until 2001.

How to best described my feeling from meeting with Andrej Ban. Well it is difficult as my expectation of at least one hour of talk with him was something what didn't happen. Unfortunately I had feeling that he was very nice but has no interest to talk to me. It is probably very difficult to understand my position for a professional who has busy photography life. It is difficult to see how important such a 60 min could be for somebody who is quite isolated from other photographers contacts and environment he grow in. I must say that I understand this. Maybe now, even after this short contact future will change a little and Andrej will look at my future work differently. Hopefully I can get in touch with other two persons who were interviewed by Andrej Ban.

The same day, actually just after I said bye to Andrej we met Roman Harvan and later our old friends. That evening we spent on boat restaurant (which is fixed at the Danube river). I had a great time of long discussion, mostly with Roman about his music, drawing and my photography. He is extraordinary person and his view on different things is interesting to listen and interesting to argue with. What was different comparing to my discussion with Andrej was that Roman had interest to listen and gave opinion, while Andrej was in hurry and has different things in his mind. Not that he would gave me his opinion but we had a too little time and there were other things in his agenda which had higher priority.