High and Higher

I have been drawn to the mountains since my very young age. I admire their shapes, their magnitude and their strength. They have been here for millions of years, which makes me feel so little when I stay next to their giant rock walls. I do enjoy their quietness and some sort of slowness of time while I am there. I can find my own internal peace. However, it was not my interest in climbing or skiing which made me to go there at the first place. It was originally my passion for landscape photography, from which all my other interest slowly evolved.

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Expect the Unexpected

As a hobby photographer I cannot choose to go out when the conditions are perfect. I have to squeeze my photo adventures to couple of weekends a year. When I am not outside making pictures I do think about what kind pf photographs I would like to make next time, and I usually set  high expectations for the next trip. But as I cannot choose the perfect moment I am heavily relaying on given weather conditions on one specific weekend. 

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Small World - Part Two

Fist public presentation of this latest project of mine is done, and after all I am very pleased with the feedback I received over the long weekend in Gex in October last year.  As I do not have regular exhibitions it is always very special event for me. The closer itI become to opening ceremony, the doubtful I was. The voice in my head was constantly asking the unpleasant questions “how people will react to it?”, “will they understand?”, “will they find it interesting?” etc. These questions were permanently on my mind, as it is impossible to hide behind computer screen and internet anonymity during the exhibition. I have to face and talk to real people who  give me immediate verdict about my work.   

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Confrontations Photo - Upcoming exhibition in Gex, France

I am very excited to announce that my photo project Small World has been selected by jury of Confrontations-photo as one of the 11 portfolios to be presented during the upcoming photo festival. All of you who are close to Gex or Geneva you can reserve weekend Sep 30 to Oct 2 in your calendar and come to visit and support this unique photo event. Marek and I were already participating to this event four years ago, and it was really nice experience so I hope this year will be at least the same or even better☺

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Print for Nepal

If you would like to get yourself a fine art photograph and help to support people in Nepal in the same time, you can help artist from Art Upfront to rise funds by buying their fine art photographs. A lot of artist, including me, decided to be part of this big effort and donate entire profit from sale to charity. You can see all available photographs here.

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Small World - Photographs Added to The Gallery

I did mention my latest project “Small World” here some time ago, and I have been continuously working on it since than. This week I went to see my friend Jorg Brockmann who is a photographer and gallery owner here in Geneva. I did ask him for his opinion about this project and It was really nice and productive discussion and I was positively surprised by his comments and suggestions he made to me at the end. 

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Mamiya RB 67

Marek recently wrote reviews on Phase One medium format digital system, therefore I thought I should add short review or rather to say my opinion about fully analog Mamiya RB 67 medium format camera. Analog photography has become very marginal over the years and a lot of cameras and lenses had been discontinued, but I can say that new wave of interest in film photography has been emerging recently. If you are thinking about experimenting with film or moving  one step higher from 35 mm camera system, this might help you.

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Darkroom Saga Continues

I have spent quite some time in darkroom during last few months. I have been printing photographs for our exhibition Marek and I will have in November this year here in Geneva. It has been quite interesting process full of surprises, positive and negative. Those negative were actually not so bad, since I was able to learn new things from them, and those positive they are always nice.

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We are still here

Our blog has been quiet for some time, so I think it is time to bring some life back here. Marek and I have been very busy with our daily jobs recently, and it has been extremely difficult for me to find some extra time to sit in front of computer screen also at home. But do not worry we have not abandoned photography and this blog at all. We are still here and continue this journey, even though in a bit slower pace than we would wish. Today I would like share an update on what I have been up to recently.

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Busy days

I have been quite busy with my work, which is why I have not been active much here recently. To be honest it was not only work, which kept me away from writing blogs and sharing photos. I also spent very nice time with my parents who came to visit us to Geneva. Regarding photography, I have been mainly thinking about my current and future projects and of course I have spent some time in darkroom. I have almost finished my next silver print offer for November. This time it takes me bit longer than I expected, since I have to do some spotting in the final picture, nothing major just few small dots, but I have to say spotting is art on its own and I have already wasted few prints.

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Silver Gelatin Prints

Today I would like to announce start of this new product. Until now we have been offering inject prints only in our shop section, but from today I would like to offer you unique chance to buy newsilver gelatin prints. My objective is to print a new print in archival quality every month and present it here. I am also planning to share all details about the printing process and the photograph itself. I have found this inspiration in LensWork magazine and I strongly believe in systematic work, so I am willing to put this kind of pressure on me from now on.

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Developing Black and White Negative

Marek mentioned here that we spent a great week on Isle of Eigg attending workshop with well respected photographer Bruce Percy. I have never been to photography workshop before, so I had no idea what to expect, but somehow I took more rolls of film than I usually take for one week long trip. It was good decision since, I did manage to take 27 rolls of medium format film despite the fact that we went only to two locations during the entire week. Now is time to develop them, which might take approximately three weeks. In my previous post here I was describing how I do expose my black and white negatives, so now I would like to follow up and share how I do develop them. Before I begin, I want to emphasize the fact that I am describing here the way I work, which might not work for other more experienced darkroom masters. As I mentioned earlier I am exclusively using Kodak T-Max films.

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New Photographs From Lake Geneva Added

Today just very briefly. The weather has been extremely hot here during last few days, so I am not able to write anything interesting nor meaningful. Therefore I just want to let you know, that I added few new black and white photographs from Lake Geneva area to our gallery section here. Lac Leman has been my ongoing project for several years and I am now getting to know the lake little bit more. I have discovered few new places recently, which I would like to revisit, when the conditions get ready. Summer time is usually very busy around the lake, so I will wait until late September, when holiday season is over, and I will be able to enjoy again those very special quiet mornings, which I like so much. My plans for summer are quite simple, I would like to spent as much time as possible in darkroom and also to do some mountain hiking. I hope you enjoy those new photographs and survive this heat wave:)  

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Exposing Negative

I wrote about my darkroom experience here, but later on I thought I should also write bit more about individual stages of my analog workflow. Therefore in this post I would like to focus on exposure and film development, since both are very important for future work in darkroom or in Photoshop. I am aware that internet is full of similar post and tutorials, so please take this as my individual approach, which is not the only one possible, but rather the one which works oaky for me. There are plenty of more experienced photographers, which I believe might have different opinion:)

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Northern Lights in Black and White

Seeing Northern Lights is very exceptional and amazing experience. I hope that I never forget the feeling I had after the first magical show I saw last winter in Landmanalaugar. The explosion of colors and shapes was unbelievable and definitely not from this world. On the other hand, from pure photographer’s perspective it is not easy to capture those special moments. That time I really did not handle it well from technical perspective. For example I was using only ISO 800, but I could have used even higher and get much shorter times, without blurry stars, and there were many other little things I should have done differently. With this experience I was getting ready for this year’s trip. I tested my Canon 5D mark II and I was sure that I can use up to ISO 1600 without any obvious quality deterioration, that I can use the lowest aperture on my 17-40 lens and I really have to pay attention to focus properly, manual focusing recommended.

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Photo of the Week - September 12, 2011

Today I would like to share with you one of my recent photographs, which I took at the end of August close to Anthy Sur Leman in France. It is part of my ongoing project “Lac Leman”  and I have been photographing this exact place for couple of times already and I have never been really happy with results. So this is my first attempt I am willing to show to others, I guess it is not perfect, but at least it gets some of the things I was hopping for. The weather turned out to be almost perfect, it was little bit chilly in the morning and stormy clouds were quite quickly approaching the lake. I was on location some time before sunrise trying to observe it before setting up tripod and camera, but most importantly I was enjoying the quiet morning with only few ducks and some other wild births wondering around. I really like the time at the end of vacation season, when mornings by the lake get nicely quiet again and one can really relax. I am planning to travel more around the lake this upcoming winter. First of all, I want to discover some new places, but I want to keep returning to already know locations like this one. I have quite a few photographs in my mind, so lets hope that I will have a chance to take them.

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