 I often get asked a question like, hey Josh, like I know you do the whole YouTube thing and you seem to be pretty good with a camera, like do you do photography too? And I've never really known how to answer that question. Like yes, yes I make videos, yes I'm decent with a camera and yes I like to take pictures but like, I don't know, I never really considered myself or could call myself a photographer. I'm really not sure what qualifies somebody as a photographer though. Like yes, I love to take pictures and like most people actually know how to use a camera. I'm not just one of those people that owns a DSLR and takes pictures occasionally and has never switched their camera off auto. Like, I know how to set up the settings on my camera to get the correct exposure, like aperture, ISO, shutter speed, all that stuff, like I know that pretty well because I experience with it with the video stuff. But I always kind of hated calling myself a photographer because there were so many different people out there that were doing it way better than I was and to call myself a photographer I felt like I just didn't have enough experience. I felt like I just wasn't good enough at the craft to actually, you know, deserve that label because the whole reason I got super good at using cameras in the first place was YouTube. So before the summer started I kind of had this subconscious goal for myself. I knew I was going to be spending two months in eastern Africa traveling through Tanzania and Kenya and learning Swahili and in addition to that obviously seeing these beautiful landscapes, these beautiful animals and like having once in a lifetime experiences. So I thought why not try to use this opportunity in Africa to kind of up my photo game? Use it as like an experimental learning period to take a ton of pictures and see what happens. But like after the whole experience of last summer in Paris and getting my gear stolen I was a little hesitant, especially when it came to, you know, lugging $4,000 of equipment halfway across the globe. But I eventually decided that I would but I decided I would pack lighter, okay? So I wasn't bringing my vlog camera, I wasn't bringing any extra supplies, I was going to bring my one DSLR and my Canon ADD that I'm filming on right now and then my favorite lens which is the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 which I'm also filming on right now. That was always going to bring and obviously like the charging cables and all that stuff that I needed. But I was going to pack light, that was what I was going to bring. I was really going to focus on taking as many pictures as possible and seeing what happens. Like I've obviously done a ton of photo shoots with friends. In the past I loved just like getting together with some friends, taking some cool photos and everything. Like I'm decent with the camera but I wanted to kind of take that next step. I wanted to get as much practice as I could and really develop the craft because it's something that I'm very interested in but I just haven't had enough time to actually pour into it and dedicate to it. Now I titled this video how I learn photography but really in reality it's more of like how I developed my own style in photography over the past couple months, over the summer where I was pretty much just shooting every day. Obviously I was still taking videos but I didn't bring my vlog camera because I didn't want any more gear there that could be stolen. So I was filming a ton of my phone. I was filming a little bit on this camera. It's a little heavier and hard to carry around and everything. But I kind of shifted my focus a little bit more towards photography for this summer just because vlogging and especially vlogging for like two months straight, that vlogging is so draining trying to make videos and trying to construct a story. I find myself constantly thinking about what's the next step, what's the next shot going to be? It's very mentally draining whereas photography kind of eases my mind a little bit. I can just go out there and shoot. I don't have to thank too much. Like obviously shot composition and all this other stuff but it doesn't require that constant like 24-7 like oh how's this next shot going to lead in this one? How am I going to connect this story? So it's kind of nice to take a little bit of a hiatus from video for a little while. But basically I'm going to walk through some of my favorite pictures that I took in Africa over the summer throughout Tanzania and Kenya and kind of tell you guys the stories behind the shot and the lessons that I learned along the way. So we actually started our journey on the coast of Tanzania, the sweaty coast as they call it in the biggest city in Tanzania, Dar Salam. And there we spent a couple days kind of getting adjusted and then we headed to the University of Dar Salam where we spent a week studying at the University of Dar Salam listening from lectures from their professors and then we all were actually staying with faculty in a homestay. So I was actually staying with a Swahili professor at the University of Dar Salam and his family. So not only were we going to class every day and learning Swahili and learning about Tanzania and their history and the culture and everything but we're also I'd go back to a Tanzanian family and got to practice my Swahili. And especially it was even great because it was a Swahili professor. Basically there wasn't too many photo opportunities there but we did take a day trip to what actually used to be the main port city in Tanzania, Bagamoio. And Bagamoio was absolutely beautiful. I'll throw out the pictures now. We visited the Kaole Ruins, which are these really, really cool ruins that dated back hundreds of years and then it's also just a really cool coast town. So there's a lot of opportunities to just like there's the old forts that the Germans used during World War I and then we're also like got to walk along the beach and see all the dals and the fishing boats and everything. So that was pretty cool. After University of Dar Salam we moved inland down into the bush. We actually moved deep down into the Ngarangari River Valley where we stayed at like a little camp and lived in huts. And there wasn't too much out there but I kind of thought I would one night just walk around the camp and see what I could make out of just this random camp and see what shots I could take and see what angles I could take. And I actually was very successful in some of my favorite shots from the trip came out of Ngarangari where there were these really cool huts and there were these cactuses everywhere and I tried to be a little creative with the ways that I was taking these shots and there's like one with like a motorcycle in a shed and I thought that looked pretty cool. So that was kind of just me a little experimenting with some landscapes. Later in the trip we headed even farther north to Kendoa which is a home to some very ancient cave paintings but also home to a really cool dry river valley which we hiked through one evening and got some really cool sunset shots of that river valley. It was also cool because like the sand held all the water in since it was like a dry river valley the sands kind of like served as reservoirs so all the water kind of come to the top in the sunlight and would reflect off that which created some pretty cool visuals and also it had like a beautiful valley with the acacia trees and everything. We headed to the big island of Zanzibar and the Zanzibar archipelago off the coast of Tanzania where we stayed on the eastern side of the island for a couple days and that was incredible because not only was it just beautiful when the tide went out every day and you'd see all the tide pools with all the andals and everything but we also got the opportunity to go on a sunset dowel ride where we all loaded up onto this dowel sailboat and kind of sailed out, watched the sunset, we swam for a little bit and we sailed back. Got some really incredible shots of the sunset especially with all the other fishing boats coming by. We moved from the eastern side of Zanzibar to the western side to the capital city which is Zanzibar city but most people just called Stone Town which is a very ancient city and kind of like a great spot of cultural exchange over the past thousand years whether it be the Persians, the Portuguese, the Omani Sultanates or even like it was a British protectorate for a while so there's a lot of different cultures combined in one spot and the streets there were just incredible the streets with all the market vendors Zanzibar is actually also 98% Muslim so having that cultural influence there as well was super cool. I remember there was this one I don't know if I got a picture of it but there's literally like there's one Catholic church on the island and then within like 50 feet of the Catholic church you could see the spire of a Muslim mosque and that's just something that I've never really seen in America it was cool to see that cultural exchange just all the ways the different cultures blended and work together all on this one island. After Stone Town we headed to a private island which is actually one of the it was the first marine protected area in Tanzania so it's called Chumbe Coral Park so they had a beautiful coral reef that lined the island and then there's this this island where you could go and do ecotourism so they only have like I think eight or so bungalows on the island so you can only have 16 people on the island at once and all the money that you paid to stay in these bungalows went back into the island and a lot of the the resource and everything that were flowing through the Chumbe were kind of in a closed loop so there wasn't so it was very sustainable everything was solar-powered like all the rain like everything we showered with was filtered rain water that was filtered by the roof of the bungalows they also had a cool lighthouse which we got a lot of snazzy pictures on. After Zanzibar we actually took a flight all the way up to northwestern Tanzania where we stayed on the edge of Lake Victoria and Speak Bay for a couple days which was very convenient because we took our finals for the first part of the trip and then we're able to go to a safari in the Serengeti like the very next day because we were so close and the Serengeti is just absolutely beautiful from seeing like a literally a wild cheetah in the middle of a hunt chasing a gazelle and almost almost taking it down to seeing a tree full of lions some of the shots I caught there were just absolutely incredible and that was like safari in the Serengeti is like a bucket list thing for me and finally being able to knock it off was was great after the Serengeti we headed into Kenya for three weeks we're staying in a lot of rural areas home stays and stuff so I didn't have a lot of time to do photography we did hit a couple cool spots one of which was Hell's Gate National Park which we actually rode our bikes through Hell's Gate National Park is the actually the the park that the Lion King was based on and they have a little a little pride rock that kind of looks similar to how it did in the movie and they also have like just some really cool animals and a lot a lot of cool gorges and stuff that are happening because of the East Africa Rift system so we kind of went down into one of those gorges saw some hot springs and got some cool shots of the gorges and like the surrounding terrain later in our time in Kenya we were staying right off the southern border of Nairobi National Park and got the chance to go to a a baby elephant orphanage which was incredible some some beautiful pictures that I took there and then also got to go to a draft center later that day to get up in person with some of the drafts because we only saw him come from kind of a far while we're in the Serengeti so those are most of my favorite shots that I took in Tanzania in Kenya I really like like I said tried to take as many pictures possible and kind of really develop my craft so let me know what you thought down below these pictures I'd really love any feedback for those of you that are more experienced photographers also I hope you guys enjoyed a little backstory about my Africa trip I do plan on posting more videos about that soon but I kind of gave you guys a little outline of what all happened on the trip so that's about it for this video if you enjoyed this if you liked my storytelling if you like the pictures drop a like down below it helps me and supports the channel a lot more than you think like I said let me know what you thought down in the comments below let me know of any other video it is along the same whether it's photography whether it's video whether it's Africa related or just like any general other video ideas you want from me feel free to drop those down in the comments below and if you're new if this is first video you've seen welcome smack that subscribe button I have a lot of cool stuff in this channel whether it's magic whether it's college life whether it's video stuff it's all here so stick around and with that I think that's gonna be it for today's video thank you guys for watching