Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

I was busy with redoing a little not only color scheme, but a layout as well. Now it is what do they call fluid layout. It should be working nicely from size of screen 800x600 up. And shouldn't get wider than 1024 pixels.
I would like to ask you for your opinion. Mainly what do you think about new color scheme. Please leave a message with this journal/blog entry. Possibly you can say when comparing to this old design. New test page is at test.piskoftak.com.

Thank you for your time and opinion!

I was, what ten or so. At the basic school we learned how to grow a plant. How to grow fruit and more. We had nice garden as a part of the school. And we had green house as well. Now thirty years later, garden is desolate and green house half destroyed. But they are still there. In a school new kids, but, I guess they do not grow plants anymore, maybe on computers... What a pity!

This week was rather full for me. My wife, was busy most of the time outside of the house, so I was with kids most of the time. Pickup them from school, went to cinema and similar activities.
I was able to scan in night few films, which I developed week before. Also I have printed some prints for exhibition coming at the end of the October. I need to finish this rather soon as I need to ship them across Europe. They will mat and frame them there.
I find it very nice that my solo exhibition will be held in my home town, Zilina, back in Slovakia. Hopefully all will turn well. I am really curious.
I also have got two orders, totally for three prints. Both come from my own web shop so I really think about closing the eBay store soon. It only costs me a lot of money so far.

Yesterday I have finished rather big print (30x46cm ~ 11"x18") and matted it in passpartout (50x60cm ~ 19"x28"). Maybe you remember my note how one of our neighbors come to me later in the evening. So I went to him yesterday and handed over to him the print framed. He likes it very much. And here it is how does it looks:

I have update my Testimonials page where I place images from people who bought prints from me. There you can read what they said and see how did they placed print bought from me.

Just a quick note, maybe only for myself as note for the future, who knows. I have heard from more people (mostly from US/Canada), that Fomapan films are curling too much and they have problems to scan them or but them anywhere flat. Well I was just scanning Kodak 125PX. It was curling like a hell when I was putting it to development tank. And now it is almost impossible to keep it flat for scanning. It always jump out before I close holder on Minolta 5400.
There was something specific on this film, which let me think. This film I have got as gift from friend. Film was about 5-10 years after expiration. So rather old. Maybe you guys from US/Canada are buying these Foma films rather old. Maybe not expired, but maybe these films already spent some time on shelfs. And that is reason for curling.

I never had curling problem with Foma films. I buy them fresh in Prague. When I buy them they still have 2-4 years to expiration sometimes more. After development they are holding flat like any other film. When I was using Kodak 125 PX regularly, it was also fresh and I also didn't have any problem with curling. So really maybe if the film is long time in container it just keep that curl form when out of it ;-)

Do you still put your wash on wire in the garden or balcony? I love it.

As I look at my journal calendar it seems that I am so busy Wednesdays and Thursdays that I am not able to post anything. Well we had yesterday ten year celebration of our marriage with Viera. We went to Japanese restaurant with two our youngest kids. We had very nice time especially Ema and David I believe they really didn't expect that kind of food and service.
Otherwise I am still busy with preparing new site and its colors and printing for exposition. Lot of other things... Well I guess I will write bit later and post some image.

Sitting on the bench behind a church. Enjoying a quiet afternoon. No hurry, time flows slow...

Today I have headache, can't really put some special text here. I took this image in Ardene Belgium, spring of 2007. Light was nice and I felt good ;-) I guess I will replace this text some day when I feel better.

After long while I woke up today morning rather early, around 5:30 a.m. It was total darkness outside and rainy. I did what I had to do and went out. I did it very fast as it starts really pouring rain. That I was driving slowly through the village and i started to enjoy the sharp lights on deep black background with drops splashing on car's front window.
When I hit the highway I was fully in a mood. Driving in a dark with little rain in rather warm weather is just so nice. There was not much traffic, well usual morning density so I could drive rather fast. I enjoy the sound of tires on a wet tarmac.
I hope you do not mind such a writing here, I just felt I need to share it with you as I enjoyed it so much!

You see this is a first Wednesday in this month when I am writing to this blog. Yes I needed to break this behavior as it almost become a rule: Do not write Wednesday and Thursday!!
Well I have something special to tell you. Yesterday morning I found that print sold o eBay (second this week) and than today I have found the same. So three prints in one week and we have only Wednesday.
If it goes like this I do not need to worry about costs of my coming exhibition ;-)
What is even nicer is that print from today was ordered from Australia. This is the first print to this continent. As it seems, my prints are now all over the world. Except Antarctica ;-)

Just a small door is open to the green house. Inside air is sweating, dark green shadows of leafs in a heavy air. Outside sun makes all white. As a boy you went in for a few seconds. Just to try, but you run out soon, to the dry, hot air.

For a few last days I was in discussion about use of my photo on a book cover. I think today, when I received reading copy of the "GRAFFITI SCULPTOR" book by Latham Shinder all is decided.

It was autumn, leafs still on tree, but day was cold. Very nice late day sun was shining. Showing all the colors. And than wind come. Trees start moving from side to side like a crazy. We closed all windows and just look on them.

I am thinking to again introduced matted prints. IN other words prints in passepartout. I believe the presentation of such a image is enhanced quite a bit. Problems of course is extra price and time involved in such a way prepared print. Not only price of additional material and work, but also postage needs to be adjusted. As the package is becoming bigger and heavier.
I will probably made it optional feature and people who will like it could choose it. This is easier done in my own shop than at eBay. So I will introduce it here first.

Based on suggestion from Dave Beckerman I looked around and found same basic material for use in mating prints. I bought them just behind the border in Belgium. The Lineco Linen Hinging Tape and Mounting strips. This makes mating my prints a bit easier.

There is some few month ago I enabled commenting on my web site. Fist I did allow commenting to the images I am showing here and than later commenting to the journal, blog posts was enabled.
This month, September 2007 is month with the most comments. I am glad for you great comments and shared opinions. I really appreciate that. look at comments activity in last 11 month. First comment was entered 29th of November 2006.