Hi there!

My name is Ivan Ralchev, I’m 23 years old and I live in Bulgaria.

This is going to be all about photography, because it is the art of expressing yourself. The feelings that rule your world. But, truly, sometimes I just don’t know what I’m supposed to say…

Well, this is how it started.

In the beginning I was amazed by the way the world around me appeared in the viewfinder of my mom’s Zenit 12XP. Then I fell in love with the shutter sound.

And then I became obsessed with the idea to create my own world. Finally… This time – armed with a powerful digital gun. A Nikon D200. I look about me through an AF-S Nikkor 18-135. And as long as I prefer blurring to achieving sharp focus, I’m a proud owner of two primes – the 50/1.8 and an old manual focus AI 135/2.8. And yep, digital photography is cool. It’s easy. It’s cheap. But sometimes I miss the good old film, the negatives. Those fragrant and heavy family albums.

That’s the reason why one day I decided to build my own darkroom. So I transformed my grandpa’s basement into a laboratory for black and white photography – there are the chemicals, there is the dark film box and this obsolete russian enlarger. In this room I develop those black and white 35mm films that I shoot on with my grazed but very reliable Nikon F4s.

I had to give up working on this project for quite a while, but now I’m full of enthusiasm and ready to explore new fields, new objects. A whole new world. Be here with me. I will appreciate it.

Thanks for swinging by and cheerz,
Ivan

ivan [at] raltchev [dot] info
This is my personal weblog – http://raltchev.info – in bulgarian only, unfortunately.
But you can find me on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.