Mac Sokulski | MiKS Media Photography

Best of 2016

by Mac Sokulski | Jan 6, 2017 | Art

Another year has passed, and photographically I should be calling it, a year of experimentation. I did not travel far from home this year, like my wife did. This did not preclude me from trying different things. As you can see from the images below, it’s a mish-mash, a chaos, with no definite theme to anything. Landscapes mixed with boudoir, portraits, babies… I mean wow. I wanted to try using old film cameras in different conditions, either outside in full sunlight or inside matching strobes and light meters. Trying my hands at creating large panoramas. Madness.

One thing I learned this year, is to appreciate film a little more and change my shooting style a lot. There were times when I did not take any digital cameras with me on little photo trips. Since the medium format cameras have a maximum shutter speed of about 1/500 sec, I had to learn how to navigate apertures higher than f8. It’s a scary, unknown place for me. I love shooting wide open. I really love making the background in a landscape, out of focus and concentrating on the foreground element. It’s just the way I like doing things. Medium format, and even the 35mm film camera forces me to close down the aperture of the lens, because of the shutter speed limitation, and that in turn opened my eyes to a completely different style. I’m still learning to appreciate it.

This is all an experience, because shooting with film not only slowed me down even more, but forced me to make each picture count. With digital it’s so easy to just shoot one scene a few times, just to get a better shot. Film of course puts a 36 frame or less restriction (12 with medium format!), and that made me more careful what’s in the frame. This also translates well to digital. Taking care what’s in the frame and that everything is set right before pressing the magic button.

So here are my best of 2016. I will admit, it wan’t easy pickings, as I really love every frame in this gallery. It’s definitely not as coherent and nice as Kasia’s, who is growing photographically in leaps and bounds. I really admire that. Then again, I could be biased 🙂

Enjoy!

Adventures of Film Photography

by Mac Sokulski | Nov 23, 2016 | Art, Urban

From time to time, I like the change things a bit, and go back to time where things were… a bit more complicated. Plus the medium was a little less forgiving than today high quality camera sensors. Shooting on film, as some may say “old school”, takes discipline. Not only some cameras are limited in shutter speeds, but also everything is manual. Manual focus, manual exposure, manual, manual, manual…. In the world of digital photography it is easy to take for granted all the features that come with even the basic of digital cameras. Autofocus, exposure, ISO, are so often overlooked or judged in terms of speed and dynamic range. In the olden days no one cared how fast the autofocus was, as there was none. Somehow people were still able to provide us with amazing sport photography. National geographic still has the most enthralling images. It was all done with clunky manual cameras, on film. Don’t get me wrong, I love what cameras of today can do, and what we can create with them. I love the fact that I can autofocus, that I can set my ISO to automatic, and never really worry about it.

I mentioned about discipline. Having a very limited amount of frames on film, you want to have every image count. You want to frame your shot, and more often re-frame it just to make sure everything works. Making sure there are no unwanted elements in the frame. With old film cameras you do not have the luxury of checking if your camera settings were correct. You have to trust yourself that the image imprinted on film, is as you envisioned it. Thus you need discipline to make sure the images are good and intentional. It’s a great learning tool. Understanding light is all about photography, and using an old film camera will make you understand it even more.

There is also one little tidbit that will help you. A pen and a notebook. Because there can be a fairly long time between taking the photos, and actually seeing them, I find it very beneficial to record the camera settings. I just use my smart phone and a note taking app to do that. It helps to remember and compare the settings to the images.

Adventures on film, can be very rewarding, and great tool for improving your digital photography.

Fog, cold Alberta sunset, and Fuji.

by Mac Sokulski | May 4, 2016 | Fuji X, Landscape

Before this blog is going to be over run with images of Scottish and Polish landscapes, I thought I might squeeze in a few pictures from a memorable outing not too long ago. As always on our little excursions, we just picked a back road that looked interesting and started driving. We came upon a little valley, that was covered in thick fog, even though the sky was blue, and was threatening with a very bland sunset. So we figured that maybe if we just follow the fog we can get something interesting. I think we did.

Sometimes photography is just all about getting lost, and following your heart. If we decided to stay home, because of clear blue skies, we would have missed this opportunity. So the message is pretty simple, explore because you never know what is waiting for you around the corner.

Spring a year ago – Landscape photography

by Mac Sokulski | Apr 26, 2016 | Fuji X, Landscape

It’s been exactly a year ago, when these photographs were taken. Sometimes I wonder, why it takes me such a long time to share them. I think it’s the combination of procrastination and being lazy. It’s not that I don’t want to share, or think these are bad images…. I mean I wouldn’t be sharing them at all if I thought they were bad. Just that I have a huge back log of images that just sitting in a dropbox folder, all dusted and almost forgotten. It seems that I must be taking too many images 🙂 .

I think it’s also a little bit of a memory lane. Going through the old images and think about the times they were taken. Funny thing is, I remember exactly what I was doing at that time. What me and Kasia were talking about. Yet I can’t remember what I did last week. Funny that.

This is one of the reasons I think our photographs are so important. They hold a piece of our lives, our souls. Doesn’t really matter if they are good or bad, it’s our moments worth remembering.

Going back in time to 16 mm Fuji summer – Landscape Photography

by Mac Sokulski | Apr 18, 2016 | Fuji X, Landscape

This was the time of actually field testing the 16 mm f1.4 Fuji lens. Wanted to see if I could live with just that lens for landscape photography, or would I miss the ultra wide zoom. I love the fact that the 16mm is so bright. At f1.4 and minimum focusing distance of just 15 cm, it is really easy to throw the background out of focus. Even though the ultra wide zoom from Fuji is a really really good lens, I think I can sacrifice a little and stick with the 16 mm lens. Since I don’t really have a choice any more, as my wife elusively appropriated that lens for herself 🙂

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