YouTube? Why?

If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I like learning new things. When something draws my interest, I want to know all about it. If there’s another thing about me, it’s that I’m a perfectionist. Once I decide to do something, I go all in to get as proficient as possible. The trick for me is getting started.

So it was with YouTube. Much of what I know today about photography, specifically landscape photography, I learned from YouTube. I started with British photographer Thomas Heaton, to whom I first subscribed in 2016. Heaton captured me not just with his images, which I adore, but his presentation. I love how he outlines his thought processes along the way: not just technical stuff like exposure settings, but what drew him to a particular composition in the first place. What drew his attention. Why he was looking to capture in a given location. What story he wanted to tell. I couldn’t get enough. I have followed a number of photography YouTubers since then, but Heaton was and remains by far my biggest influence.

So, when Heaton announced that he would be the headline presenter at a November 2018 outdoor photography expo in Manassas, Virginia, I immediately booked a trip. It didn’t hurt that my daughter and toddler grandson lived an hour away from there in Washington, DC, so I was able to spend some time with them as well. The expo was well worth the 300 mile drive. Tom (yeah, I’m gonna go first-name basis from here on because why not) spoke for 8 hours on day one, with a shorter seminar on day two. He is as friendly and personable in person as he appears on video. Tom took his audience through his own journey as a photographer and videographer. A key item that stuck with me was his recommendation that aspiring photographers use YouTube as a platform to promote their work and find a new audience.

That idea stuck in my head. It had seemed to me that the market for YouTube photographers was already becoming glutted, with most of them in the English-speaking universe being British or Canadian. And way younger than me. Plus, more and more were joining the platform every day. What chance did I have to gain any audience? What new could I do that already wasn’t being done? Plus, I had never shot video other than a few times for personal use. I’d never really edited anything except to document a trip to Orlando, using a basic Microsoft app. Last, my aging PC would never be able to handle heavy video editing; it was already struggling with Lightroom’s latest updates.

But then, 2020 happened. With you-know-what.

I had booked a workshop in April, 2020 with YouTube photographers Gavin (@fototripper) Hardcastle and Adam Gibbs in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. That trip got scotched. In fact, pretty much all travel plans for the year went up in smoke as borders between nations, and even states, got closed and lockdowns of various forms went into place. So, what was I going to do? Well, one thing that the stimulus payments Americans received in April 2020 allowed me to do was to finally replace my PC. With a new, high-powered machine, I decided to take my free time and learn something new. No, not video; not yet.

I bought an online PhotoShop course package from yet another YouTube photographer, Nick Page of Oregon, who was offering a package sale. I spent a month completing the courses and then re-editing old photos. Finally, working in layers and luminosity masking made sense; it revolutionized how I edit images to this day. That one new skill changed everything, b

ecause once I understood PhotoShop, I realized that other new skills were within my grasp. Including video. I also took the time to start up this website as a portfolio showcase.

And so it was that in May, 2020 I made a commitment to finally start that YouTube channel that was bouncing around as an idea in the back of my head. In June, 2020 I drove down to DC to visit my daughter and provide day care for her son while she taught summer school online. With a brand-new GoPro Hero 8, I shot my first two videos on day trips to parks in the greater DC area. I figured that as an older African-American outdoor photographer from New York City, I could carve a unique niche among the plethora of landscape photographers already out there. I decided to focus on my journey towards proficiency in landscape photography, having shot mostly birds and flowers until 2018. I figured that I could relate to an older American audience as a regular guy trying to get better as a creator.

I had two videos in the can when I returned home in late July. But now what? As I said, I knew nothing about video editing. I weighed my options as I looked for editing apps. I settled on BlackMagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve 16 because (a) it got a lot of good user reviews, and (b) it was free. Between various online tutorials and good old trial and error, I figured out the basics of assembling and editing clips to put together a video. I launched the first one at the end of July 2020, including an introduction and a mission statement in which I invited viewers to join me on my journey to artistic self-improvement. In September, 2020 I bought a Canon R6 camera to improve the quality of the videos.

Here I am now, 7 months and 20 videos later, with 420 subscribers. Not a lot, but not nothing either. Through engagement with viewers and other creators both in YouTube and other social media, I’m actually ahead of where I thought I’d be. I’ve made online connections and established relationships with a number of other creators, one of whom recently invited me for a live chat on his own channel. I’ve grown both as a videographer and a photographer. YouTube has actually given me a reason to go out and shoot when I might not have otherwise, because I know there are people actually looking forward to my content.

I don’t know if I’ll ever become a “star” on YouTube, whatever that really is; and I don’t really care. I’m lucky to have a solid retirement income and so I don’t rely on YouTube or photography to pay my bills. I am enjoying video as a new creative outlet, and I’m getting a lot of positive feedback (along with suggestions to improve, which I welcome). I don’t love my nasal Queens, New York accent, but I am getting better as a presenter and storyteller. I’ve recently started to up my video editing game by shooting in 4K Canon Log and doing more color grading. My kids now brag about “My dad, the YouTuber”. I can’t wait to see where this new platform takes me as a creative artist!