Remembering Childhood: Black and White Photography by Richard Vanek

Today’s featured artist is Richard Vanek, a Slovakian photographer currently living in the Netherlands. The black and white photographs below are all from his latest series, “Remembering Childhood.”

Here’s the first, entitled Way to Neverland.

In his email to me, Vanek explained the inspiration for this series.

He said, “When I started creating images for this project I was 37 years old and a father of three kids. . . I become kind of afraid that I would lose all those memories from my childhood. [I wanted] to create images which will help not only me but also other adults to remember how they looked at the world when they were small.”

Those words grabbed me, but it was his photographs that really blew me away.

In each image there’s a sense of wonder, as though looking at something for the first time—from the rapt concentration in the face of the child above, to the obvious thrill of the photograph below.

In the Air even brings a touch of vertigo, as the whirling figures are flung outward in space, suspended only by thin wires and carnival magic.

Most of Vanek’s photographs seem entirely natural, too, which is fitting. The children are simply doing what children do, and giving us a glimpse of childhood one more time.

Do you remember your childhood? Running through long grass, or under tall trees; staring at skyscrapers, at mountains, at double-decker buses and clouds. . . Do you remember when everything was magnificent and vast, and. . . new?

To see the rest of this wonderful series, visit www.richard-vanek.eu or check out Richard Vanek’s full website, Europe in Black and White Photos.