       5219 Kodak Vision 3 500T
How I study Get the technical stuff in your system so you can focus on feeling and expression. In preparation for shooting projects on motion picture film I started to practice with stills. I figured it would take a few years from my first roll to really get to a point where I was happy. It started with testing the stock in different conditions, over and under exposure, and working out a colour grading pipeline. All of this so that I can eventually focus on a feeling without a limit in the medium. Personally, my tests are really meticulous and almost repetitive. Shoot, dev, scan, grade, take notes, repeat. A note to this, I'm also trying to take the attributes I like most in my film shots and bringing them over to my digital cinematography. Not always seeking matches, but trying to make the most out of each medium. Example being the Arri handling underexposure far better but film having a nice foggy look to the deep black point. I can use digital to see further into the shadows and then lift / fog out the low end to taste. -M.
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    Building out a custom stack. For the longest time I've been piecing together a personal style. Testing digital and film, figuring out what works and what I like and then trying to bundle that attribute into a "function" . I often run my project through a group stack with pre and post blocks as powergrades that don't change much.
Prep - main - post 1) Tone curve, MTF contrast , grain 2) CST conversions - Arri Log C to Davinci Wide Gamut + levels (squeeze and drop lol ) and subtractive saturation + highlight compression + split tone colour 3) Film Contrast DCTL + Mid to high remapping. I've been looking for something where I can just shoot to taste and run everything through a stack with minimal switches. This way I can have a passable finish in minutes for entire projects. I shoot and colour my own stuff so it's a little different from working with a team where the footage has to be passed around. Shot this on the Arri Alexa XT Plus with Spherical ( Voigtlander 58mm f1.4 ) and Anamorphic ( Nikon 50mm 1.8 + Sankor 5e 2x anamorphic block through a Rapido FVD24a variable diopter )  Kodak Vision 3 500T
Shot my first music video on these steps.  Nothing could prepare me for the fact that a single image would represent a 7 year journey of healing and transformation.
My journey started when I'd just moved home from college and my father was dying of cancer. It was the day after I got home and I asked if there was any advice that he could give me. He said," don't let anyone , even my passing stop you. Go out and become what you want to be." That was our last day. I decided soon after that I wanted to travel the world and to be a photographer. I took his lenses with me. After travelling to Japan , Taipei and Shanghai, training my eye, I came home. The journeys gradually let me find myself. 7 years out from that conversation I took this image. Healed and whole, I can now say with confidence that I'm a photographer.  Walking around the city for the first time in a while.
Fuji X-T3 , Tokina 11-16. |
MANIKKOn a journey. Searching for something. Sharing what's found. History
January 2026
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