I’m happy to kick off the 2020s at Photography Life by announcing a new weekly series of Youtube videos, including one I’ve published today. This video covers a bunch of ways to take better photos with any camera.
I will say, this new series might seem suspiciously familiar if you followed Photography Life last year! We did a bit of a Youtube experiment already, releasing several videos in early to mid 2019.
It was partly a success, too. Our macro photography tutorial got some significant traction, and a few other videos are humming along at a solid pace as well.
In other ways, it was… let’s say, a learning opportunity. Some of the videos last year garnered fewer than 4000 views, including a couple that took me the longest amount of time to make. And then a ten-day travel hiatus killed the experiment (and my goal of one video per week) when I ran out of videos to post.
I’ve had plenty of time since then to take a step back and figure out what worked and what didn’t. Part of what didn’t work was timing. Videos take much longer to make than articles – in fact, about three times as long. Splitting my attention between writing articles and filming videos (I wanted to maintain a schedule of 1-2 articles per week as well as a video) just wasn’t a long-term solution.
This year, I’m sticking to a hard schedule of one video per Friday. As excited about that as I am, there’s no way around the fact that I’ll have less time to write articles as a result. Last year’s videos were a great trial balloon, but if this is to be a sustainable project (which we really want it to be), the only reasonable solution is to shift my attention in the direction of video.
Of course, I’m sure that more than 99% of our readers care about Photography Life because of our articles, not our videos. To me, compared to an article, videos are easier to watch without really paying attention, and they can be a waste of time if you’re not careful. It may be 2020, but the written word is still the internet’s lifeblood when it comes to learning about photography.
That said, videos have a ton of power if they’re done right. Some demonstrations just don’t translate well to paper (or the digital equivalent). There’s no denying that photography is an intensely visual medium, and video is, in theory, almost a perfect match for explaining the ins and outs of photography.
I’m trying to keep that framework in mind as I work on this series. I have to admit, I’m not much of a Youtube watcher myself! I suspect a lot of Photography Life readers are the same way, even as Youtube has been growing dramatically in recent years. My hope is that you’ll consider our series anyway if you’re on the fence.
And of course we won’t stop writing articles. For now I’m the only writer on the PL team who’s planning to spend a lot of time on Youtube videos. Nasim and others will still write a ton of reviews, tutorials, tips, and all the camera-war clickbait Buzzfeed quizzes you could ever need. (Scratch that last one…)
So, without further ado, I want to kick off the new series with a video on the most important topic of all – how to take better photos, regardless of your camera equipment:
Thanks for watching! If you haven’t subscribed to our channel, you can do so here.
For what it’s worth, I would much rather read than watch a video.
Me too. Although I like the way Spencer (hi there!) presents himself and acts in the videos, I rather read. But let’s see how it works out. I know other sites which do publish more and more videos and less written articles. I find myself visit them less often now.
Cheers to all, have a good 2020.
-jan
Hi Spencer,
Best wishes for the new year. I really enjoyed your video and am looking forward to more in future. I seek out photography information both from written articles and YouTube videos. I subscribe to a handful of YouTube channels that publish weekly or at irregular intervals. I don’t mind the irregular publications, but once the weekly interval is committed, it becomes a viewer expectation that may add a lot of pressure on you. I particularly enjoyed the portions of your videos where you are talking in the background about full screen images. In instances where you are shown speaking to the audience, it would be beneficial to warm up the surroundings a bit, perhaps with some pictures on the wall behind you and a few photocentric items on the desk in front of you; the current look of these scenes is very stark and clinical looking..but your voice, content and speaking style are spot on. Cheers !
Looking forward to seeing your weekly videos. Thank you!
Thank you!
A very helpful video. One of my photography goals for 2020 is to improve my compositional skills. This video was a very helpful introduction.
Again, thanks.
Spencer,
Love this website for the very informative information that it provides and is well written. Youtube can be very poisonous with comments like great brand X versus poor brand Y. Great if it useful and positive information. Your video is an example of the second. Stay with (which I have no doubt you will) and your YouTube videos will be successful and attract a lot of followers. Looking forward to more videos….
Carl
I enjoy the articles and the videos. Is it unreasonable to post a transcript version of the video? This way you get best of both worlds… article and video.
I came across Photography Life by accident – probably while looking for reviews of yet another bit of photography kit that I was hankering after but needed to justify purchasing because it was “good”. I liked it enough to add it to my list of photography links that I visit regularly.
By inclination I prefer articles to videos although I don’t mind embedded videos that add value, or even straightforward “the video is the article” type videos. (But I really, really hate pop-up videos that auto play!)
This is by way of preamble to saying, “I really liked the video”. Excellent, straight forward, and valuable advice presented in an uncomplicated and elegant way. And I enjoyed the simplification of the presentation too: just you, a plain background and one prop (the shiny black table). (But in the first half there were some pop-up pictures in the top right corner that I assume were advert-links which distracted somewhat.)
Despite a gadget habit, I am a firm believer in, it’s the photographer that makes a good photo. Your video didn’t tell me anything that I shouldn’t already know (being an “older” but not a wiser photographer) but it made me think again about what I should be doing instead of coveting gear!
Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about the number of views on YouTube. I’d say that “fewer than 4000 views” is still successful and I suspect that those were real views (i.e. by people who are genuinely interested in the topic as opposed to people uncritically clicking on suggested videos presented by a YouTube algorithm). I think Tomáš’s points (January 3, 2020 at 7:39 pm) regarding YouTube are well made. I never go direct to YouTube; I always start from either a known site (my lists of favourites) or from hits in Google searches. But once I have found a video that I like I might well click on some of the YouTube-suggested videos if I think they are interesting.
I work in information management, and have done for a long time (I said I was older), but in my experience I don’t see any audience difference by age. It’s my opinion that appreciation for sites like Photography Life and the information available therein extends across all ages and demographics.
Hi Spencer, your video was excellent. Being hard of hearing and older, I usually have trouble hearing and following videos and lean towards the written tutorials where I can read at a slower pace. But you fixed my problem! You had closed caption and spoke clearly and at a speed that I could follow…..thank you, thank you, thank you!
Mike
I sincerely hope this is not the start of a new trend (I see it on many news pages also).
I do not like watching videos, so I hope it will not take away anything from your normal reviews and articles.
Believe it or not, I’m very much with you on that, Jozef – I also prefer articles, and I tend to groan when I see well-written news reports replaced with poorly done video snippets these days.
Still, it would be silly for us to avoid the potential viewership on Youtube for any longer than we have. I also know that some of these videos will have appeal for our typical article-reading audience on Photography Life, especially for some topics that lend themselves to a video demonstration (say, calibrating lenses). On top of that, I’m putting a lot of effort into making the videos “article like” in many ways, because I recognize that a lot of our audience isn’t ordinarily a fan of Youtube content. I guess I can just say, watch a few, and maybe you’ll be surprised :)
And if they’re still not your cup of tea, keep in mind that we’re not switching over the website to focus on video content rather than blog posts. Nasim and our other team members are going to keep up their usual article pace as always, and you’ll still have plenty of good content to read.
Hi Spencer, it is nice to have videos as long as PL is not single-man project, and page doesn’t lack fresh articles. Otherwise, it would be impossible for one man to make videos and write quality articles. At this point, I think it’s good to have youtube videos. I also think you should consider content of the future videos while looking at the content of PL page, and maybe extend or shorten some topics in videos.
Thank you, Vukašin, I think you’re right. If the Youtube side of things slows down regular articles too much, it just wouldn’t be a good idea. But I think (and hope!) we’ll be able to balance it in a way that works.
Spencer, I tend to read your articles while winding down for bed or waking up slowly, at which point I am more comfortable with text and static pictures than videos but I deeply enjoyed this video, its seemingly elegant simplicity (on the surface), the beauty of its photography, and the underlying kindness that seems conveyed to me. Thank you. And happy new year to you and Nasim.
Much appreciated, Fabrice! Happy New Year to you as well.
I don’t know if the tone of these videos will change or not, but at least for now, the louder, in-your-face style (which certainly seems popular today) is not at all what I want our Youtube channel to look like. I’m glad you thought this one hit the mark. Honestly, it’s hard to balance a more subdued tone with something that really holds someone’s interest. I still have a lot to learn!
As a side note, I am inclined to believe that the video was all the more impactful to me as the visual emphasis was on the photos. In that light, filming yourself in front of a plain background was, I realize, very caring. One of the messages this conveys to me is that the video is not about the videographer but about his love of the nature and photography and his wanting to share it.