Richard Vanek - Black and White Photography

Frozen in the sun shine.

As I promised Friday here are images from small soft bound version of my book "Remembering Childhood". In case you have interest to purchase the book, please leave a note. Based on interest I will or will not produce second print of the book. The soft bound book is:

• 20cm wide and 15cm high.(7.75" x 5.75")
• printed with genuine 4-color offset printing with real ink on paper
• printed on extra thick and heavy, archival quality, acid-free paper.

Here are few images, first is comparison between hard bound (bigger and soft bound smaller book, than introduction page and views in the middle of the book.

So they stay there. Now dry, in moment wet. They stay as they can't leave. Would we stay? As we can leave?

I have just discover that I have about 30 undeveloped rolls. I expect this week to be development week. I am also giving course this week so it will be hard. I expect to be tired every evening, but hopefully some time and energy will be left.
And tell me, how do you like my latest image? I am really curious what do you think.

Even I placed link to this image to my front page I can't help myself, but I need to write about it here as well. Why? Well this is that kind of image I always have in my head. And I have yet to produce. I love almost everything on that image. contrast light, shadows, light beam, the structure of the floor, the low view. The lost person, slight out of focus and graffiti on wall. All it perfectly plays together and creates marvelous feeling of lost soul and left enough to our imagination. You can just browse through the image and let your mind creates the rest. I am extremely curious what you think about images like this one. Tell me please.

Again today I have post on front page work of other photographer. I received email today from Jean-Claude Belegou. I did exchange some conversation with him quite some months ago. Today again I remember his excellent work. I have to mentioned another series he did back in eighties. It is Le corps. I like his older black and white very much. You really need to go to his site and take look for your self. I am sure you find a lot inspiring work there.

Road is sharp, surroundings not important, Just focus on destination...

Nice girl serving coffee in small English town

Not only the spider can make a web, also sharp sun in cold winter day can make a light web in our eyes. How much I love it, nobody knows, but me.

As you may notice I have made some little changes on these pages. Nothing special I just thought they will enhance browsing experience a bit. The feed on top right of each page is now going to feed burner. One reason is that it is showed in browser much nicer and not as raw XML file, second is that I can get some idea how many people had subscribed to my RSS feed.
I also replace crazy and long journal archive table with all the month from back of 2001 until now with simple drop down box. I am sure that like this is it simpler, nicer and takes much less space.

I didn't give up with looking for my atelier. I just got some tips where I can look and so I will try again. It would be great if I have some space where I can work on my ideas for images.

It has been broken. I look so close, my view is distorted. Chains are dissolving, they are not important, just fly over, enter the lake side.

I have this in my mind for a little while. Move to digital, to buy a Nikon D300 and go that way. I was waiting all these years for some camera which will give me similar quality as I do now with film and my Nikon F100. What I was waiting actually was three four things:

• Nikon handling like F100
• Amount and quality of data at least as 2700dpi scan from bw negative
• Price which will not kill me
• Full frame (FX) sensor

Nikon D300 will, as the price drops a bit satisfy first three options. And frankly, D3 is too big and too expensive to even consider.
I have some plans about atelier, studio work all in black and white, to go bit more abstract and less documentary.

I am discussing all this with my second I and recently I have exchange few email with Dirk Rösler. He went from film to digital and back. All these are of course experience and views of somebody else, not mine own. I feel I know Dirk to certain extend which can help me to adjust his opinions to my needs. I am publishing some note and pieces from our email conversation for you as well to see what all is in my our minds. Maybe you have your own experience. I would love to read your view.
For me decision for next few days is following. Borrow the Nikon D300 and try it for few days and to see if working with it, is what I am expecting or not.
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The following pieces may sound bit without a context, but all is about me moving to digital world and answers from Dirk.

richo: Seems like you heading in the opposite direction in time. You asked me in your last email about my motivation to go digital. Well to be honest the primary reason is the time. I have not that much time. And when I have idea I like to execute it right away and mainly to see results right the way (that doesn't meat on back LCD, it means to come home and see images the same day so I can adjust my idea and try something else) I shoot really a lot if I am in mood and I like to experiment. I like to have feedback sooner than later. I can see it on my last wood & water project which I shoot partly in 35mm and partly in 6x6 films. If I would come home and could see images right away I would go next morning and re-shoot some or try something else and create far better series than I have now at www.richard-vanek.eu/ww

dirk: I see. Well, I understand the motivation because I have been there myself - and back as you say. I have sold most digital except the GRD because for me the theory you describe just did not work. I ended up shooting more but ending up with less. It was very frustrating. Photograph happen in the head and in the heart, and these places take time, feeling and thought. There are no shortcuts and what makes rationally perfect sense (no more developing and scanning) somehow did not work in reality. For me anyway.

Add to that the fact that digital black and white just does not look as good and you are down a path where you did not want to go. Yes, it would be nice to get things done faster and perhaps better, but quality needs time. This is also my reasoning for the large format. The effort to make one photo is amazing. You need to concentrate on the essential stuff, the good subject matters.

I am not saying that your plan is wrong or will not work. All I am saying is that it did not work for me as digital comes with some other aspects that you buy yourself into and that needs very careful consideration.

richo: Dirk, this is maybe only my thought, I need to prove it in practice. I have plan to borrow digital camera from friend, if he agrees, and try it on small weekend project. Idea is that one day I make series of shot and at evening I go through them to see if there is anything useful, anything in the way I expected. I will not work on them just to see how idea from the day turns out. And next day I can develop different way or just continue if I am satisfied.

dirk: Might be worth trying, but like world cup you need to play several matches to see which is the best team, not just one.

dirk: Remember also that digital is making all of photography more homogenous and more similar in appearance. There are a limited number of sensors and software out there and everyone is essentially using the same. Unlike with film where the film itself, choice if developer and your technique create an individual result. Maybe you are not bothered by it. My own feeling is however that a strong point of your photos is that they are very personal and this is a property that in my opinion should be protected a best as possible.
I see some interesting new angles emerge in your work (a bit darker in mood too, which i like) and I think they might be related to your way of working incl. the use if film.

richo: This is important, and I was thinking about it. I work on each image I put on web on some more on some less. If I have idea what I want to get from image I work quite long until I get it. I believe that a lot can be done using the software and approach my specific way. That is also why I do not buy any special software I generally using only one pwp (Picture Window Pro)

Calm, you sit and there is no wind in the air, there is no movement in the tree. There is no though in your mind...

This is continuation of discussion between me and Dirk. I have got email from Dirk last night and after reading it I realize that Dirk has rather different aproach to photography than I do. I try to explain to myself and to Dirk how do I see things. I would like to thanks Dirk for agreeing to publish our discussions. I hope that it can be useful to more people than only me.

richo: I like the film, I like it all, just have one problem that I am not able to develop films the same day I shoot. If I can solve that I have no need to switch to digital now.

dirk: I would be interested in your reasoning behind this. Why do you need to see results immediately? To improve your work? Why do you think it may be better at the next attempt? Wasn't the first attempt more objective and neutral in approach? How many times do you need to retry to know you have the best result.

dirk: I am just skeptical about this need. Winogrand put away his exposed films for years until developing and evaluating them to get emotional distance between the act of taking the photograph and looking at the resulting photograph. One of the reasons for this is that the subject and the picture of it are two different things. But we connect them in our minds because the photo is considered a representation of what was in front of the lens, which is not entirely true. The photo is just that, a photo.

richo: I left your whole comment as I think it is very important. As I understood you right you are expecting me to take street kind of photo. But I do not want to do that anymore.

richo: What I like is to stage a scene which I think express what I have in mind, what I do feel. Stage with objects and people in certain space, room,... When working like this I would like to see if what I have got in camera is what I had in mind. I have usually very precise image in my mind. And I try to create it in front of camera.

richo: So far I was doing it only with post processing of my images. It was like sculptor. I have got raw, direct image from negative (like stone you buy) and than I was working on it and while I was working it drives me direction which I feel fits the image and fits partially what I like to say by the image.

richo: As examples you can see this image captured in full sunny day and made to what it is or this one, which was image one would just never use as it was very boring as direct scan.

richo: But now, and it is for longer time actually, I like to use a space and people and direct them, stage them to create image. I am full of what I like to say and I have no time (getting old) to just walk around and wait until I see it in real life (may never happen).

richo: I guess I am repeating myself, but I like that you understand what I mean. When I create something (stage scene) and I try to catch the image which I have on my mind with camera in this scene, I need feedback to see if it is what I thought it would be when releasing shutter.

dirk: Lastly, is our objective to become more result-orientated (see again the Andy Summers quite on my blog)? Working faster, getting better results in a shorter period of time? This is a certainly a desirable, but I would say that it is an objective out of the capitalist world, minimize effort, maximize output. I would think that such a mode of operation is not good for the creative process.

richo: This is exactly opposite, at least in my approach. When I am in a mood and I feel I can create what I feel inside. Than I just can't stop I need to go on. I love iterative process where I made few images look on them and than feel if it is it or not. Or I may get inspired and try different. So for me it is not a materialistic question to get job done without effort in shortest possible time. For me it is to find that image I have in mind in real.

dirk: Thus, returning to the point I made above: you buy into a while new paradigm, not just the things you like.

richo: You have true in this absolutely. I know that. I will get rid of chemicals, scanning, development tanks. And I will gain flash cards, cables. I already have hard disks, backup, software, DVD/Cd as I have over 20000 images scanned by now for last five years.

dirk: I don't wants photos being created like an Excel spreadsheet at work. I want to use my hands, my body and all my senses when creating them, not just eyes and hands. It is like a child getting to know the world via Playstation. You use some of our capabilities, but loose out on some important experiences.

richo: Dirk, I do not agree with this comparison at all! There is no difference if I catch the light by silver oxide or by CCD sensor. All sensor and camera processing is not the same as not all the films and chemicals are not. The creation of image is not question of tool, it is question of mind and eye.

richo: I am not sure if now is the right time for me to go digital, but I am very sure it will come. Same way I love digital printing much much more than traditional wet darkroom and I am more efficient and far better in it, same way I expect to gain by moving to digital.

richo: I am only not sure if sensor which my money can buy today are what I will like. I am not a rich man to just buy and try. I certainly see people who can do it these days and I see individual and specific images they creates even using same tools.

The biggest challenge which I see in my conversion to digital world is how to process color raw images into black and white. I am currently reading a lot of materials from the web and doing some my own test. I also played a lot with lightroom, but I feel not right in the development module. I would love to use it for managing images (library module), but to buy it only for that is just too expensive. I really like its capability in image management, it is just best from what I have see so far.
The develop module has a lot of great ideas, but the way it is applying everything on image in real time is just too game like for me. Just doesn't feel right. I try to convert my old raw NEF Nikon files to color tif using vuescan. Some may smile but it is working perfectly and one can have a certain level of control already there. Than I load result as a TIFF file into Picture Window Pro and experimenting. My experiments are inspired very much by lightroom way of working. Hopefully soon I can post some of my results.

Continuation of discussion with Dirk about my possible conversion to black and white digital world.:

dirk: I did not have photographs made on the street in my mind when I wrote to you before and honestly I don't think it makes a difference. Photography is photography no matter what and where you practice it.

richo: You right about that, but I guess there is certain difference based on subject and way you working.

dirk: I understand what you are trying to do and it sounds good and you seem to be excited by it. So go for it. I remain doubtful however for the need for instant feedback, but that may be a personal preference of mine. In reality if I understand your plan about creating stage with objects and people correctly, you can either check after a few shots if you got what you wanted, which personally would distract me like hell and have a negative effect on the relationship between me and the subject, especially with people involved (unless they are professional models who can switch on and off despite interruptions. What you are describing is not so far off from advertising shoots where everyone is looking at the results immediately and then art directing it as it goes along, so the work style obviously works). Again we're back at being result-orientated as opposed to getting into the moment.

richo: I must say I agree with you in the way you describe it. I am fully with you. But there is a bit of difference. I would never look at camera's LCD screen when working with people and trying to capture a moment, There is just no time for it. Checking of histogram like some other suggested is not necessary of you ready for prepared scene. It is in a way controlled environment.

dirk: Alternatively you can look over your work at the end of the working day and see if you need to redo it the next day. We have to assume that the scene would still be available the next day. If there are people involved or natural lighting, then that may not be possible. Perhaps you also don't have time until another week later and by then the whole relationship to the subject has changed and you start again.

richo: What I have in mind is to look at series of shots after few hours or even later in day. You mentioned problems with setup, re-shooting (what a stupid term ;-) the scene next day or next week (correct assumption about time constraints). Well you right, but when doing film and let say I am in mood and all goes nice I can shoot 20 rolls in the evening. In optimal situations (every day developing) I can process them not sooner than in four days, but in reality it is often more than 2 weeks. That includes developing and scanning all negatives in preview low resolution.

richo: Two weeks! Imagine that I rent a place and I have it for weekend and week. Would be nice to have this feedback same evening and next day we can try something better. Same like years ago when we recorded with band music. We had a week in studio. We worked everyday whole day. At evening/night we just listened what we recorded, discussed it and than next day we knew we need to record bass again, that or that needs to be done and that and that is good.

richo: So it is not instant interruption in work what I had in mind. Just a feedback in comfortable time interval to lead you to better result.

dirk: Sorry for being too skeptical here, I would very much like this to work myself but for me the reality and the rational plan (which makes total sense, no question about it) just were two different things and did not meet. I guess it is totally subjective and to know whether it works for you the only way is to try and see for yourself.

richo: I am glad you are skeptical. You are one of very few who talk like this to me. I appreciate it as I do have both kind of opinions to listen to.

richo: And about trying it myself, yes I need to do that and as you mentioned earlier once is not enough.

richo: I was just busy with color to bw conversion as that is the one big item I would buy myself into, as you mentioned earlier. And frankly it is not easy. All the tutorials they always show the best and most easy images to convert. I am trying it on some images I have done in 2004 with borrowed Nikon D70. Difficult...

After blurring all problems with density shift were gone as the whole is masks disappeared. I used this to lighten and increase contrast of the corn field.
So using this two blurred masks I created my final pwp version of the image. It was done in 15min so it still has a bit to the perfection, but I knew I was on good road.

Based on color separation in HSL mode I created this mask for corn field. The result was that in brings strange denisty shift in the middle of corn field.

After I saw Daniel's masks I used my detail mask and blurred it heavily (could be done more) You can see the result I used this mask for darkening sky as well for increasing it contrasts.

This is the kind of mask I am always using this one is created based on color separation in HSL mode. Allows me to separate sky, but left those artifacts as you saw in detailed crop in earlier images.

And finally 1:1 crop from version where HSL was not used. Simple color mixer and than masking for selective contrast increase where used. No artifacts and now strange color tones between corn branches. All seems to be fine. Important is how to make mask correct. I normally used very detail mask which I expand by feather and blur with little Gaussian blur. Based on masks Daniel is using I did something which resulted in interesting aproach. Daniel is doing quick mask by hand using tablet. I am far from that kind of perfection ;-) But thanks to him I found my own way.

In this 1:1 crop from my image converted in pwp artifacts are terribly pronounced. It is certainly thanks to increased darkening of the sky. The separation based on color in HSL mode can leave these kind of side effects. And this is the point I mentioned at the start of this experiment. So this is the difficult image for HSL conversion. Even it can work in different images well, for this is very difficult if not impossible.

1:1 Crop from my lightroom version. You see a little white artifacts on right side of each top corn branch. In 1:1 crop is visible so it will be on print.

This is 1:1 crop of converted image in version from 2004. No artifacts but contrast is low and whole image is very flat. Just a side note: Image is not sharp as it has focus on building and not on corn filed. That is not important for the moment. Please look at next three crops from different version.

This version is based on aproach from Daniel Staver. First conversion from color to black and white was done simple with color mixer. And second using masks the part of image were dodged and burned. The key here is creation on masks. More about that in last four images of this series.

Based on color to black and white work flow from lightroom I try to do the same HSL space adjustment in pwp (picture window pro) I think I went quite to the extreme here.Sky is nice dark and foreground has that high contrast spark. But artifacts in foreground where it touches the sky are very pronounced.

This is result of mine color to black and white conversion in lightroom. You need to understand that this was my second day of lightroom usage so I had no experience and I made the adjustment based on video tutorial. But I have spend quite some time with image. Image to my eyes look to dark and without that nice contrasts I like. No dark sky and no highlights in details. I made this version using adjustment in HSL space of color image. I try to keep balance between darkening sky and foreground so I avoid creation of artifacts. These you will see on 1:1 crop in later images in this series.

Quick Daniel Staver version, I believe he works few minutes on it. I was curious how his result will be. He has master The Photoshop techniques to the higher level and I always admire his opinions and craft. Another reason was that I failed to convert this image without artifacts which are visible best in 1:1 crops later in this series.

Original conversion to bw I made using pwp (Picture window Pro) back in 2004. From that time I remember that it was rather complex and difficult. I remember I was splinting color file to three color channels and mixing them back together. I never was fully satisfied with this version, even it takes a longtime.

This is original image, Nikon D70 nef raw file. And you can see its basic color version after lightroom conversion.

As I promised, I just posted my findings about converting color image to black and white in my experiment pages. I spend few days trying things out. Images showed in that page are result of quick conversion only to prove a technique. So do not expect top quality. It was more like prove of concept. I also wanted to underline the fact that some images is more difficult to convert than others. I certainly will try to convert different color images to have more experience and to see what all is possible and what are the constraints.

I have modified this image to my best color to black and white skills to this date. Feel much better now. For more talk about converting digital images from color to black and white read look at my experiment page.
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Original comment from 2004-09-22:
This is a farm house at the end of village where we live. This shot is done using Nikon D70 and converted to b&w. This is my first attempt to do little smarter color to b&w conversion. Info: 1/1000 s, F 5.60, focal length: 34.00 mm

It almost feels like people are worried about my possible move to digital. Absolutely no reaction except email and chat with Dirk and Daniel. Very interesting. Well I do my investigation and will write my thoughts and findings here, if not for anybody than for me as a note for the future.

After those last few days you may think I have lost all interest in analog photography. It is absolutely not true. I have just spent my evening to develop six rolls of Fomapan Creative 200 which I exposed some time ago at 100 ASA. It has been while ago I did develop last time. Maybe two weeks or so. Fixer was gone I needed to make fresh one. It was a tedious process, but the moment of looking at freshly developed negatives is really nice. Every minute I was developing I was thinking what would be different when I will switch to digital. I think that moment when fixer is flushed out of the tank and fresh wateris used for few minutes to clean and than when I open the tank and look at wet negatives. Yes I will miss that moment.

Today morning weather was quite fine for driving. Under the clouds and almost dry road. Just a few cars, thanks to the fact that a lot of people took off today. I was at my office in 25 minutes what can takes 40-60 min in usual day.
After while gets really dark and than I felt it is raining. It was raining for few days now with some breaks. Wind was always very strong. So I have looked out of the window and so this, sudden snow, we see so little here.

So few free days is over and we experience here a lot of snow for this country. Today morning I actually need to clean car from about seven centimeter layer of snow with ice under it. Driving was nice in sunny morning with snow on fields. I like it very much, that is what I really miss in this country. That refresh feeling in the middle of the winter, when you wake up and there is a snow everywhere, quiet with deep blue sky and sun shining. It gives you that necessary kick in the long nights period of winter.
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As Dave writes, on the photography front, I scanned all six rolls I developed. So it takes five days for six times thirty six images to become available for me to select from. It is not bad, but if I imagine I like to work on something next day, it is just not possible. It is nice for shooting images as they go, but you just can't have serious continuation. Well you can, but it is a bit different.
All my series, like night mood or water and wood, or even blurry tryout worked out as shooting session of max 2-3 hours. I never actually come back to the same, why? Well I guess I never felt again same way. Pity is that I may come next day, and take images better that those day before if I saw what I did wrong or how I miss my imagination with them.
Well, maybe it is only in my mind, nobody can really know for sure. But I believe that be able to see images at the end of the day and be able to evaluate will help.
On other hand I must agree that film has certain level of uncertainty which can bring specific look to you images, look I wouldn't like to loose.

I also made quite a updates in my photo library, in sense I add tag and keywords I didn't last few times, when through last few month of images and finished updating meta data. It was rather interesting to see some images I forgot about.

I was just browsing through my own photos on the web. After I developed next six rolls I just felt like looking on work I published at this site, having in mind maybe some different way of displaying my work here. As I went through some fifty last images I have notice quite interesting trend about ratings. It is rather strait forward to see which images people likes and which not. Rating is still not very popular, but even from that few which are on site I can see that images which are generally nice and purchased the most are also the one with highest ranks. I guess it is working also the other way, so I will be removing some images from shop and some I will add to it.
I like to earn some extra money for supporting my transformation to the digital world. So if you like to have some of my last photographs I captured using analog cameras and film, now it would be good time.

Dirk is focus to capture a ghost ;-) at Abiko-shi, Chiba-ken, Japan

Abiko-shi, Chiba-ken, Japan

I have add some new information into my article about developers and film combination I am using. I have some plans to updates also other articles. Currently there are following articles on my site:

Films and Developers

My favorite Film/Developer combinations for black and white photographs with description of agitation, times and results. This is the mostly asked questions from e-mail I am getting.

How do I Take Pictures

I am updating this article now... Writing about how I did and how I do take photograps. What camera and how I use it. About my way of aproach subject and little bit more.

Packing prints

I have got a lot of questions how do I pack photographs before Isending them to you. Here you can see the most common packing for 5x7and 8x10 prints. The bigger prints are done similar way, but in biggerand little different pack.

Making Prints

I print digitally, using carbon pigment inks on highquality Rag papers. Read more about details how I prepare black andwhite image from raw digital data to print on paper.

Developing b/w Negatives

Description of complete procedure how I do develop my black and white films. It is rather detailed so I hope it will not confused but help you to see alternative to your way.

Limiting Print Editions?

This short note describes my view on producing limited number of prints from each negative. This is especially interesting reading for those who planning to buy prints from me. It gave you all information what is my motivation behind my choice in this subject.

Post Development Procedure

This part describes how I manage my photographs after film roll isdeveloped. How I organize them to be able to find fast what I wantand to avoid loosing anything.