 How's it how's it? Do you know I can't believe it the last time I sat here and Shared a channel update with you. I had you know 1500 subscribers and now of the last fortnight or so it is just gone. It's gone crazy And there are now like seven thousand two hundred people who have subscribed to the channel. I Really, I can't thank you enough and I know every time I do do these videos like I'm thinking of thing But really honestly, it is so Heartwarming to see this wonderful community that is growing up around these videos that I've been creating about the thing this shared Common love that we have for photography. I Get a lot of feedback and I always I take all the feedback that I get for the channel extremely Seriously, and one of the things that you guys have mentioned is that you'd like to see more contemporary Photographers when we talk about great You know photography and of course everybody's definition of great is different Because of my background I tend to draw the photographers that I like from from the history books because they're the ones I was sort of introduced to and and also like story and and I think this is kind of what shapes My my videos about photographers is is it is hard to sometimes find a story that we can weave around a Contemporary photographer because their story still being written whereas obviously for people like Walker Evans and Bill Brandt and You know and all those others their story is complete So it's easy to pick out the threads that would make it compelling and an interesting video But I will do some more contemporary photography for you very shortly. I absolutely sort of promise that In the vein of looking at more contemporary photographers, it's no secret that I have Not the largest library in the world because it's not it's only about a hundred and thirty monographs But I have quite a lot of photography monographs and and a fair number of them about Photographers who are still live and still working today and one of those who I'll be sharing with you soon is a Dutch photographer called Desiree Dolren whose book Exteriors is not full of photographs He's full of these You know hauntingly beautiful portraits, so I'm looking forward to sharing her work with you shortly in a couple of videos Over the last few days again, I went on it on a splurge and I bought a number of photography monographs again I have I have I don't know what the book version of gas is but I have that which is which is thing So I also have a couple of new books. So this one is the suffering of light by Alex Webb And again, I hope it's the lights are not bouncing off the sleeve So I haven't even taken out of its sleeve yet, which is which is quite nice But he's a photographer who I think his work is absolutely gorgeous But he doesn't seem to get mentioned as much as people like Ernst Haas You know saw lighter William Eggleston For some reason he just yeah, he doesn't get that maybe it's because you know, he's I don't know There's something about it, but we're looking him. So again, so bringing in more contemporary photographers into the mix Something else that is in the works is a history of photography. I'm busy writing the scripts right now. I Mentioned earlier about history's stories, you know stories It seemed to be the thing that we gravitate towards and and the history of photography so often is This idea that it's all the processes, you know the garotype and the amber type and the cali type and then you know And so on and so forth and it becomes a little bit sort of sterile and a bit sort of date driven and this this series is about looking at the the personalities of These pioneers of photography, you know, who are they? What drives them? Why did they see the world? The way that they saw it, you know, did they consider themselves to be scientists or art? I think it's a fascinating thing and I'm really looking forward to sharing this this series with you and as soon as it's ready I'm going to release it. So so look forward to that coming soon. It should be within the next week or so fingers crossed Mention the idea of Community earlier and and that's been a really strong thing. There's been a lot of feedback I've you know, I get a lot of comments and it's great to see and read and hear people's differing opinions And I think that's what makes a community exceptionally strong and and certainly when I first started this channel, I thought it would take I took it I thought realistically it might take a year to get possibly a thousand subscribers and I wasn't really Didn't I did not expect For this community to grow as quickly as it has which obviously means that I would like to devote more time to You know to supporting the community to putting out content for the community and I have already been Putting by me coffee links in the bottom of my videos and a number of you have have very graciously and very kindly Made donations to the channel as a thank you for me taking the time to put these these videos together If you'd like to support the channel in a sort of a more If you'd like to support the channel Please the buy me the coffee is it's absolutely lovely or if you'd like to use Patreon then please feel free to do that I have a page now on patreon and that's where you can get access to these videos without any ads because I know That we're not all fans of ads I certainly am not and and I support a number of patrons who create content that I enjoy watching and I would rather support them directly by Go through patreon then supporting YouTube or Google or whoever's you know Supplying these adverts if you'd like to and I would really appreciate if you did again Just follow the link below, but please don't feel that you have to I really I can't stress that enough. I I do this Not because I think it's an easy way to to make money, you know to sit here and just talk This is not why I wanted to make this channel. I wanted to make this channel because I have enjoyed people like Ted Forbes Sean Tucker and the like when they talked about photography the art of photography. I know Ted Forbes went on his own Journey and that's perfectly fine for him and stuff, but I missed those videos I missed those videos where he talked about Photography that art of photography and I wanted to create something that I felt could help fill that void to create Sort of videos that that I wanted to watch and and the fact that you are sitting here watching them that that seven Half thousand of you have subscribed that there's been a hundred and fifty odd thousand views in the last month. I mean OMG, you know 150,000 views It means so so very much and and if you don't want to particularly contribute financially That's absolutely fine What you can do if you'd like to show your support in other ways is to share the videos You know to to to share them on your Facebook pages to share them in a in a reddit If you're in any subreddits, you know or anywhere And I remember if you have said that your teachers and you share these videos with your classes and and I read that means So so very much to me. It's my absolute belief that I want I Don't want this this this history this joy this love of photography to be lost Under this the sea of gear where the new photographers people are just learning the craft They come to somewhere like YouTube to to learn how to load a camera or how to you know Basis of exposure and they see all these videos about gear and thing and they think that's what Photography should be about so the more that we can help spread this message that that while the gear and the technical things are of course Absolutely vital to to to photography They are not the be all and end all of everything and I want us I want this channel and other channels like Shawn Tuckers and like the early videos of Ted forbidden Anybody else who you can think of who has that same sort of vibe about photography? To get spread far and wide and that's why I'm not I have no problem Promoting Shawn, you know and and saying go and watch his videos He has a different take to photography than I do and that's but that's that's the beauty of this thing is That we all have our different takes that that lady who left a comment the other day on the Sally man video Who said that they were the most depressing photographs that she had ever seen in life and had no desire to ever see them again? That's great. You know it's fine. Oh, at least she is looking at least She's exposing herself to different viewpoints and and and sharing different viewpoints with us. There are no rights There are no wrongs William Eggleston. Some people think his work is pants. I like most of his work Both viewpoints are completely valid and this is what we need to remember about photography Especially the art of photography is that all our viewpoints are valid. There is no right. There is no wrong There was only how we interpret What we see and this is the point of these videos. They're not to to give you a doctrine They're not to set up an orthodoxy of how you should be doing things. They are Ideas about Ways that you could do things. They are suggestions. They're not absolutes. There are no absolutes on this channel everything is open to discussion and and debate Okay, that wasn't actually in any of my scripts. I don't know where I went off on a tangent a bit there But that's the point is that I love Photography I love talking about it and that's what I missed with those channels This is what I hope that it brings back Within, you know the videos that I'm doing there were two events that happened over the weekend that reminded me that I Do a lot of these videos especially the ones about the learning to see in the art of seeing that sort of thing There are actually more about me talking to me And one of those was that I was trying to help somebody on a subreddit now If you're not familiar, it's like this kind of website and subreddit is various various topic areas And they'd ask a question about sort of developing their own style of photography and I linked to my video about Being freed, you know to get away from that creative echo chamber and Because I shared that video I Got permaband From that subreddit. I don't know why they banned me. It just said you've been permaband, just you know But I thought okay. Well, that's that's a bit full-on so evidently somebody didn't like Either the topic of the video or what they thought was the idea, you know But they permaband me and that really went okay. That's wow That's an extreme reaction to something and it also followed on very quickly with Somebody left a comment on my photo school video where I did throughout the video I showed pictures that I'd taken during during my photo school days Saying that for somebody who liked or seemed to know a lot about photography that my pictures sucked That my pictures would win were no good and I thought that neatly dovetailed with the video where I said, you know Yes, your pictures suck and For so long, you know at least an afternoon. I let that comment really get to me It chewed away and I was like, oh my god If he's saying it maybe other people are saying with me and I forgot to take my advice Which is to not worry about that That there are going to be people who do not like What I make There are people who don't like these videos There are some people no doubt who don't who probably think that I'm talking rubbish But we need to remind ourselves from time to time that it's okay that you know, what we create is not for everyone Is for ourselves? I don't picture a hundred or thousand people sitting in front of me. I picture you Because you you have given up of your precious time to sit here and Engage with me in in a dialogue. It's a bit of a one-sided dialogue But you've chosen to spend some time with me and for that I Sincerely appreciate All that support that you give me and and it pushes me forward every single day when I sit down What shall I talk about today? What what things would people find interesting? And there seems to be a list every day as long as my arm just keeps on keeps on coming and The more that you support through watching through commenting through, you know saying like It's great because we are building up this community one step at a time And I really look forward to seeing what becomes of it See what seeing where it goes and and having you along on the journey with me. I just it's It means so so very much. So thank you ever so much and I'll see you again soon