 How's it, how's it? Photography channels on YouTube are, for the most part, they're pretty boring. And this is not just specific to photography niche. I've noticed, and maybe you have as well, that over the last six months or so, a lot of the content that I'm seeing on my homepage is basically just the same thing, repackaged in different ways. And especially prevalent in photography because obviously, you know, we know the topics, composition, lenses, aperture, sharpness, those kind of things, they surface again and again and again. And so consequently, the landscape has become quite boring. When I got started with watching photography on YouTube, it was probably around about December 2016. It was certainly over Christmas where I've said, oh, look, there's this guy called Art of Photography, that's Ted Forbes' channel. And he was talking about photography in a way that I appreciated. It was a little bit more in-depth, it was more about the kind of, you know, the why rather than the how. And I found this channel, I just, I loved it. I spent that whole December just kind of watching all of these videos about composition and other photographers, I was like, this is great. Because it was different to like Peter McKinnon, for example. Peter McKinnon, he's just, there's nothing wrong with him. He does his thing, but it is not me. It doesn't, I don't appreciate it. It's totally not aimed at me. So Ted was a great antidote to that. And I subscribed to his channel and you know, for ages, I would get all of his videos. I would see if they would pop up on my home screen and that was fantastic. Because that was when YouTube subscribers mattered. And because you would get an amount of subscribers, I think at the time Ted, I think probably had maybe 400, 500,000 subscribers, he would get a reasonable amount of views, whatever content he made. He was free, as were all the other subscribers, all the other content creators at the time, to explore whatever topics interested him. And he would bring, the audience would be brought along for the ride. And then what happened is over time, the impact of subscribers on views for a channel started to dwindle. And content creators were forced to start fishing for attention. Not only what I think is generally considered to be like a click bait-y kind of way, because actual click bait is when there's a picture of something that's very attractive and actually really has nothing to do with it, but they were forced to, I think, re-gurgitate common ideas. Things that have worked well for them in the past, things that have worked well for other photography channels. And at the time, it wasn't as prevalent, so it didn't feel quite as boring, but now we're in a position where there's a whole bunch of new content creators coming up and looking for inspiration about what to create for videos. Inspiration and looking towards other content creators is not a bad thing. I did that when I started the photographic eye. I went, okay, I'm gonna do what Ted does. I'm not a photographer per se who goes out and videos himself taking pictures in crazy situations with lots of sexy B-roll and things. This channel is not about me. It's about the photography I'm talking about. So I pitched myself as talking about the sort of things that I felt over time Ted hadn't also drifted away from because of that nature of having to gather attention. You know, and obviously I'm making an assumption, but that's kind of where I was. So I started off and I went, oh, do you know how I can, all right, I'm gonna make videos. I did a Richard Avedon, then it was Annie Leavitts, then it was Anton Gourbain, and I think Willie Magelston was like the fourth one. That's when some traction started going because there were people going, oh, there's a bit of a market for this and then the channel took off. But then I noticed that the views kind of, you know, they're a bit sort of hit and miss. One week, I could do a video about something and I would get lots of views that, you know, the algorithm for one of those would promote it. And then you could do a very similar video the week after and it wouldn't get any traction whatsoever because maybe something on the back ended had changed. So it kind of meant that I was stuck between a bit of a weird problem. It's that one hand I had subscribers and people were subscribed to the channel, but if they didn't watch one or two of the videos, especially the other day, because it was quite prevalent and people would actually discuss this with me, that they wouldn't be shown any subsequent videos. So like I'd go for 10 videos and somebody would come back and go, oh, I thought you'd stop making videos because even though they were subscribed to me, there wasn't anything coming through. And you may have experienced this yourself. And so what's happening is that photography channels are feeling this never ending cycle of having to create content that is broadly appealing because we can't make content that is just the sort of things we want to do. If you are subscribed to this channel, you subscribe to it because you want to see content from me. If I'm subscribed to Ted Forbes or to Thomas Heaton or any of these other guys, it's because I want to see their content. I don't want to see on my home screen videos from photographers from whom I've never heard of showing me yet another video about how my photographs aren't sharp. Firstly, I don't really give the tiniest poop about sharpness of photography. It's bourgeoisie, he says. It's not the sort of thing I'm into, but that's kind of why we're in this place right now where it seems that a lot of the content that YouTube is serving me is a rehash of a rehash of a rehash of a rehash. Because people are coming in to the photography niche ecosystem, whatever you want to call it, and I think fairly understandably looking at what's worked in the past. There is a video about composition made by Jamie Windsor. It has done very well. I think it's like two million views, something of that nature. And if you search photography composition, you'll see a whole bunch of videos, there are minor in there as well, where it's basically, in some cases, like a pretty much carbon copy of that video in an effort by that creator to make the same success for one of the better ones. And even Jamie's video is actually sort of a reworking of the original video by which feature Steve McCurry. This is kind of where I feel photography on YouTube is at this kind of weird position, is that we have a bunch of people coming in who have their own perspectives, have their own thought thoughts, which are wonderful, but they don't feel confident enough or they don't feel that YouTube will maybe promote them enough to share those ideas. And so we end up in this place where everything just becomes stale, that we're going over the same topics again and again. And even though everybody brings their own little spins and takes on them, it just feels like there's a couple of standards. There's, you know, I do the kind of the sit down on the couch, we're gonna have a chat, which is sort of a tear force. Sean Tucker does the same thing. We had a chat about this, Sean and I, where he said, you know, he wanted it to feel like it was these kind of conversations that you have with people after dinner. And he does it very well, it's a nice conversational sort of style, you know, some people who are in the landscape sort of things, they'll go out and they'll do lots of things with some drone shots and what have you. And they started off making really well polished films. And in a sense they are films. And you know, some people look at it and go, okay, well, this is what I need to do. But they forget that those people who made those videos originally, they're kind of like, I went to like a trendsetter, but they help push things on at that point. And you can't just do the same thing over and over again. Over time, my approach has kind of wandered around a little bit because I'm trying to find something that felt right for me. Right, those of you who watched the video since the beginning, remember I used to sit there with my waistcoat on because I thought, you know, I want to be taken seriously. I want people to kind of listen to what I'm discussing and you know, sort of thing. And I was very upright and I was very hello and welcome to and I would talk to you and very properly. And over time I kind of relaxed into the sort of thing. And I sort of found my place. Occasionally though, you know, I felt that I needed to attract a wider audience. And so I go, okay, well, you know, I would take forays into compositional things and aperture and stuff of that nature, never knowing what's actually going to resonate. This is such a deal. I think this is why, you know, there isn't a scope within photography on YouTube really to kind of go super broad because there's no feedback. There's no feedback from it. I can't do, you know, I can't make the same video week in week out and measure each one again because YouTube keeps treating them all differently. We never know, we can't have a safe now because that subscriber base, that core group that's, you know, I think supporters say a lot of the, you know, the original guys on YouTube with photography, it doesn't exist anymore. We feel more and more under pressure to revisit those ideas that are at the sort of the, I suppose the core of each channel. There's a couple of things that sort of stand up. And so how does this get fixed? And I feel probably the first part is something about comments. I was watching a video the other day. I've told you, his name is Brian Dennelli. I'd sorry if I mispronounce, but he was talking about, you know, his own experiences with his channel and he talked about comments and that people who have nothing to say have the most to say or something negative. And that's kind of where we are. That's number one, right? We are in an age right now where YouTube is taking engagement metrics or as viewer satisfaction is what they wanna call it as kind of like, this is what people wanna watch. And that's how they'll promote your videos. And I've found over time that often people are more willing to say that's a rubbish video or how dare you actually talk about photography because your photographs are actually pretty crap, which is a comment that I've had, that you have bad teeth, that you have hair that looks like it wants to commit suicide. It's weird stuff like that. They're always happy to show, but the people who often do enjoy a video will sit there and they watch a video and they go, wow, I really like that. But that was really, really good. That was really good. But they don't sort of like it. They don't sort of comment or anything like that. And so YouTube doesn't see any metric apart from the fact that they watched all the way through. And you know, kind of this sort of, to me, it feels like it's sort of like, oh, you know, who's me? My views are not, whatever, whatever, whatever, right? This is not the case. I appreciate what I talk about, the whys of talking, thinking about things, sharing the passion for all this kind of stuff over here. These books lie on my filthy floor in my office here. You know, this kind of stuff. This is the thing that I enjoy sharing about, but it's hard to put into a 50 character title that appeals to a broad group of people. So I know that most people, I never, you know, I could do, I did a video about Charlize Theron, you know, oh, you know, sort of having a hissy fit and a photo shoot. And that's my most popular or best performing video. But it's like, you know, it's not the same as one to say to you, okay, let's talk about, you know, why you choose black and white over color or, you know, what's your lens choices about? Or, you know, the issues that we get in terms of like second guessing ourselves or, you know, worrying about mistakes, that's harder to quantify. And I appreciate it's also a smaller audience. But I just, it feels like often that the cards are stacked against channels like myself and so it is less of an encouraging environment for other people to come through. All right, when I got started on YouTube, I was like, okay, well, I need to, how do we do all this stuff? So I had to learn all the technical bits and bobs to be two weeks to produce the first video. And then I'm kind of like, okay, how do we get views? How does this whole thing work? And I go and I look and I try to find ideas from people and unfortunately you go and you find ideas from people who say, just copy what everybody else is doing, much like in photography. You want to get better as a photographer? Go and copy all of them. Go and do all those tutorials. Just make the same thing that everybody else is making and you end up with this kind of generic channel. And at some point, and I think, you know, I'm going to hold my hand. I think I fell into that trap of creating, I think just generic ideas, things that didn't really resonate, things that weren't me specifically because I was trying to be something else. I was trying to be a Ted Forbes or I was trying to be a Sean Turca. You know, I wasn't trying to be one of the last guys. I did try some B-roll for a while and it wasn't really, it didn't gel with me. So, you know, so if you want to support photography, if you want to get in there, you know, that it's like, say to the people, if you see somebody whose channel isn't necessarily just, you know, you watch a video about a new aperture and I did, you know, when my home page is full of them, curiosity gets the better of me. Professional curiosity, I want to see this person and I've never heard of them. So I click on the video and I watch a couple more of their videos and I do the same. And before I know it, my feed is full of these technical kind of how-tos. And often I'm kind of like, okay, well, the person's okay, but you know, once in a while, I come across something and I go, Jill, I really like what they're talking about. I like their take on things. And I will say, really cool video. I like it, yeah. Because it's a bit of a support. It's thinking about when, you know, somebody looks at, when I'm giving some feedback on photographs, how great is it? Somebody says, oh, you know, this picture, I really like that. That's cool, heading in the right direction. But what we're kind of, I think here we're in a time when people have been afraid to make mistakes both in their photography, but also on YouTube. That if you don't do the thing that everybody else seems to be doing, that you're going to be somehow a failure. And you can see that sigh of frustration in there. Because I want to, you know, I love sharing my experiences of photography with you. And I'm sure there are many other people who would deeply love to as well, but they might get put off because they see this flood of endless videos about sharpness and technical bits and, you know, I bought a Leica for 30 days or something like that. For me, they just, they feel like a rehash. And maybe that's, they're not my audience. Maybe, you know, the people who watch my videos are not those sort of people. Maybe I just, you know, it's a thing like that. But again, I don't want to feel like it's a woes me. I'm just, I'm probably feeling a bit reflective because it is the end of the year. It's been a very interesting year in terms of the channel has been very up and down. YouTube been all over the place sometime, you know, things. And so I'm kind of on this border of, I feel that I've kind of found my pace the last sort of months or so since I moved into this office, I felt a little more relaxed about creating videos. I can make them whenever I feel under pressure. It does, for me, it feels a little bit more conversational, a bit more relaxed. I don't know why, but I hope that comes across. And I just, I wanted to maybe just, you know, say to people over time, you know, over the next year that if you do see people who are surfacing on your feed, who create content you find interesting or you have content creators who you find have given you something, it means a whole heap to them. If you just go, like, cool, that's awesome or leave a comment, you know, going that, I really enjoyed that, thank you for sharing or you made me think about things in a different way. My gut feeling is that in 2024, there's going to be a raft of people who come through who are now a little bit more kind of just, I think less polished around the edges that this era of being very professional with a lot of cuts and very smooth cinematic B-roll and you know, all this kind of stuff, I feel that's been a bar set very high and people seem to be pulling back on this just a little bit, not just in photography, but across the board, say on some of the channels that I watch, where I think a little bit more authenticity is starting to maybe show through. I don't know, what do your thoughts are on this? I mean, it's always interesting to see, but I have to say, it's been over the last couple of years because this is around about, it's now the 2024, yeah, almost the third anniversary, well it's just gone past the third anniversary of the channel and it's been awesome, it's been a pleasure to go from sitting in my spare bedroom very upright on a stool that would slowly rotate around to finding a way to hopefully create content that isn't boring on YouTube where I think somebody may disagree and to hear from people like yourselves. So have a wonderful new year on Sunday and I will see you in 2024. If you aren't subscribed to the Saturday selections, see a little plug always from my newsletter, there is a link in the description box below. All right, see you next year.