 All right, so here we go. Here we are. I think we're live. Yes, we're live. I know everybody. This one. Otherwise you probably won't hear me very well. Not that you'll hear me very well anyway because we, that's how we roll around here. We roll with, with very bad. Here we are. I think we're live. Yes, we're live. I know everybody. Let's just go. There we go. All right. So we roll with very bad audio. That's kind of, kind of my thing. So there we go. Lovely. All right. So yes. So here we are today. It's been, well, it says it's a year and a half, I think, according to some, some, some things. It says it's a year and a half since, since I actually uploaded the first video to the photographic eye and, and said hello to all you fine peeps. And so we got ecstatic orange in here. You've got Ty Morris and Ryan Raffer and Groovello and then Askman and William Lee. Hello from Pessigula. I don't, we, who knows? We just, we just don't know. Yes. Welcome everybody. It's been awesome, awesome to have you. And I was just saying to my wife earlier that, you know what will happen? I will, I will sit here and, and it will take up to 100,000 subs in the middle of the night or when I'm out tomorrow morning doing something. So I thought I would just take a time, take a moment actually to thank you all. Sincerely, really from, from the bottom of my heart. It has been a year and a half that has been, I wasn't crazy. Crazy is probably the wrong word to use in regards, in regards to this. But I remember when I uploaded my first video, I was kind of like, oh, well, if I get a thousand subs in a year, then that would be, that would be cool. And maybe we could, you know, maybe we could carry on from there. And, you know, for a couple of months it was like, oh, I used to get like 50 views a day and I got two or three subs and I was like, hey, and all this kind of stuff. And, and I still get that feeling actually every time that I see a number tick over on the little sub tracker thing, which I think is, is probably working. It is kind of where you might have to, no, it shouldn't, it should be live. You know, we don't see that sort of thing tick over. It's, it's great. And, and I can't believe that actually, you know, there are, I sort of, I think about in football terms that, you know, there's a whole stadium of people who like the channel enough to say, that's awesome, you know, to, to, to kind of go, I like this channel enough to, to hit subscribe and, and, you know, listen to, to the things that Alex has to say. And, you know, and, and, and I really, I have to say, you know, I really absolutely appreciate it from the bottom of my heart that you guys, everybody, you know, you guys who are watching now and everybody who has supported the channel, there's been like four and a half million views or something. It's just like, it's just like crazy. It's been really great to, you know, to, to, to see the response that's from here, to get the, you know, the emails that come through. And I, again, I'm apologize. I do apologize if I've not had a chance to, to respond to all the emails. I mean, there's, there's so many and I really appreciate every single one. But unfortunately, a four year old, I'm responsible for their, their, their school run and things like that. It makes, makes life a little bit tricky to kind of keep on top of these, these things. Don V. Filmora tutorials. Yes. Thank you very much. It's, it's awesome. You know, I was, I say, YouTube has been trolling me. You know, because obviously we had a nice sort of uplift at the beginning of the year. And then the last month or so, the subs have just been ticking over because it was, it wants me to like really work. So it's been great. And I have to, you know, say it is, it's absolutely crazy to see where everybody is coming from. In the world, we've got a Dean here. He's from Grimsby. We've got Yannick, or yeah, Jaik from, from Germany. We've got Cody, from America. We've got Nitin, Badwaj, from India. So I mean, there's a whole, whole slew of people. It's, it's, it's crazy. And really, yeah, it's, who knows where we could be in like 10 years time. But I just, I just wanted to say, you know, take this opportunity to, I introduce you to my creaky chair, because every time I move, it makes a noise. I don't know if you can hear it. Somebody's saying lacquer. Did I see a lacquer? Oh, William Ryan. Yeah, it's been like seeing some semi-Saharan African content. It has indeed. We've got, you know, all sorts of France, Australia, New York, the Netherlands. You know, it's, oh, dude, every single one of you. Thank you for being here. That's going to be like the kind of theme for the next ramble that we have is, you know, thank you. I really do appreciate it. And obviously it's been, it's been a growth, you know, initially I started off and I thought, well, I'll just do biographies of photographers whom I enjoy and, you know, and see what happens. Because that was kind of the, you know, the, the point of the channel at the beginning was to sort of say to people, look, you know, these, these are photographs that I enjoy talking about. I like, you know, photography as a whole and not that fussed about gear as you probably know. And, and I missed that. I missed talking about photographers and kind of the more artsy stuff about photography. And I felt that maybe there's other people, maybe there's other people who also want to just, you know, talk about the more high boughs, maybe not the right word, but the more aesthetic kind of concept. And look at this, every time we do a live stream, I lose subscribers and you can see, now you can see this is like, I've gone, I've gone down too. It's, it's crazy every time we see these things. But you know what, the guy, you guys who stick with me, it's awesome. This, such as the life of, of somebody who's, is on YouTube, I suppose. Not that I'm a huge thing because it's, it's not. But yeah, this is the sort of thing. I want to get to 100,000 and, and today I must have lost about six or seven subscribers. Just because they see great numbers is 70. It's, see, this is, this is why we shouldn't chase views and we shouldn't chase subscribers. This is nice to celebrate a milestone. And what have you. So yeah, so there's kind of the thing with the channel is, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's been great to, to talk about photographers and, you know, to talk about photography, the Y of photography. And you know, it's, it's, it's sometimes it drifts a little bit off, off-piste, as it were. And, and that's kind of me also finding my, finding my footing on YouTube. Obviously this, this is fairly new to me. And, you know, and things change and you try things out and some of them stick and some of them don't. Like a lot of things in life, YouTube is a game. And obviously, you know, as, as fantastic as it is to, to share the content, just share photographers with you. I'm pointing my books back there to share all these, these kind of things. Obviously, you know, it's beneficial for the channel, the more people who we can reach and say to people, look there, you know, gear is important, but there are other ways of thinking about that. And so you have to kind of play the YouTube game. You have to make content or make titles and something else specifically that, that for one ever better word, sort of, I don't want to say reach the lowest common denominator, that's kind of the wrong sort of, sort of idea. But they, they kind of reach an audience that's slightly wider, you know, than your current thing. And so there's been some hit and misses and stuff, but you guys have stuck with me so that. I love that very much. You know, we've got, we've got Niels Kump, we've got this with Dean and Laurence Bellini and Ultramix or Ultramix. Sorry, there we go. You know, Mr. Nadine in saying my videos are almost philosophical. That's, it's funny you should mention that there was a, there was a video, there was a, not a video, there was a post on, on Reddit on the photography subreddit. Maybe it was about six months ago. And somebody said that myself and, well, I always said Ted Forbes, the art of photography, were the more philosophical channels. And, and I thought, hey Warren, he's just here to, to see me waffle some nonsense. And, and it's funny because I, you know, obviously I don't know if I necessarily think that I am philosophical about photography. I think occasionally I can wax philosophical things. You know, you'll be time to subscribe and I start being sponsored by VPNs. So here's a word from Nord VPN. Do you know you need to, although in all seriousness, you do need to take your password security seriously. Okay, that is, I have it on good authority from people in the know, you know, who know about the things that you should, you should take it seriously. And, you know, yesterday was Memorial Day in the USA. I don't know this, I don't have my finger in the pulse of public holidays in America land. But I sing as a third of the viewership is, is from the colonies. And that's how I refer to America with all, with all, with all love and hope because I am very fond of America. I have a very dear friend who lives there and I'm hopefully, hopefully fingers crossed if my passport comes back from the passport office in time will be there in July. So be, be pretty cool. So, so we've got a question from Chopper. Have you ever seen that it's pre-mathodox? Actually, there are some, there are some books. I'm thinking there's a, there was a Dan Winters book specifically that you can buy, you could in the past, buy a book that had a print in it, that you could do, that you could print or that you could frame. And there were some others as well. I forget. The best place to find these sort of things is to follow photographers. If you follow photographers are active, actively putting out work who are still working in the community, the community as it were. You could often find them doing things. I have a Bob Carlos Clark signed edition of Shooting Sex, which was signed I think about four years before his death. And that was only 50 quid when it came out. Well, albeit that was in 2001. And Sarah, if you're watching, thank you for buying that. And obviously you can too. You know, but there's always a couple of things. And then Rankin, he's a famous photographer here in the UK. And because I'm on his mailing list, he was, he was doing signed editions of things. So if you basically, if you follow photographers, they do, they do offer these things for sale through their own channels. You know, going to places like Amazon and stuff, you're really not going to find them. So I hope that sort of, so choppy. Yeah. If you're looking to pick up these things, you know, follow photographers who you like and, and see what they come up with. You know, a lot of them, they're quite into buying prints. Anyway, cheers. This is a bottle of champagne in the wrong glass because we don't, I'm sorry, we don't have champagne glasses. So in the, in the words of Uncle Monty from Wittner and I, I hope it's, I hope its shape will not offend your palate. Anyway, cheers. And thank you for, for all your support. He says, you can see that's quite flat because we've been watching Stranger Things tonight because I quite like that. Yeah. So we've got Memorial Day, the Mind Blank. It's a thing. There's some lovely things. Hi from Scotland. Maureen, thank you ever so much. My mum's from, my mum's a soap dodger from Glasgow. And I spent some time in Edinburgh. I'm really very fond of, of Scotland. Got a table, a table noob at number 73. Do you know what dude? We, we, we all started, we all started at zero. Basically, you know, it doesn't really matter where you start as long as you're here. And, and, you know, this is always great. We've got New Zealand from a French cottage. I did, I did the stack. What are you doing awake? What time is it? It's like five o'clock in the morning and you'd like to get onto YouTube. We've got, who else? Nathaniel Kias, you're asking about a collab with, with Ted Forbes. Ted's, I don't want to put words into Ted's mouth, but out of everybody who I've ever mentioned, or, you know, we've talked about stuff on the channel and things. Ted is, Ted is Ted, you know, and I'll leave it at that. You know, I like, I like his, his videos. He has a lot to say about interesting sort of stuff. But yeah, anyway. Yeah, we'll sort of see. Thank you. Ed Like, Ed Lick Like, I hope I pronounced that correctly. Yeah, you know, I think that's, that's the thing with all of us. I'm going to do a video coming up shortly about the sort of things that I should have said, you know, in, in, to myself when I was younger, to say, look, you know, this is, this is kind of the photography game that you're getting into, you know, things. And one of the things is that I should have spent more time making photographs that I wanted to make. Not that I said that I did, I made everything for everybody else. And actually probably during that period I've made a lot of stuff that was more self-centered than it ever has been. But it was more or less like kind of not worrying about things. Look at this. This is live streams in action. My sub count is going backwards. Look at this. We're going to, we're going to get down to zero tonight. Yeah. We're going to stay here all night and just get to zero. It's kind of a thing. I'll be maybe, maybe you can get a plaque from YouTube. Like going to like almost 100,000 and down to zero. Anyway. Yeah. So Warren, I have a, the, the friends that I'm going to visit. Lives in, in, in Maryland. So I'll be around sort of that way. And what have you. It's awesome to have you guys. Lord, L.S. Squared, 1960, St. Louis. It's always great. Long Johnson's asking about gear. Dude, I would say the 72, 200, F2.8. You know, a long lens. That's, that's a long thing. It's just heavy. Anyway, we've got some Camille Speck from Germany. Good and Targ. Good and Arbent. I was Arbent. It's Arbent. It's Arbent. It's Arbent now. Yeah. Take a break. You know, take a, take a break. We've got Tanya. Tanya. I, you and I, Vorna Valley, I'm pretty sure. Not that we, we kind of, we didn't know. I think we've had a chat on email and stuff. But yeah, I think, yeah, Tanya, if we, if I, memory seems to call from our email conversations that you lived in Vorna Valley. I lived in Vorna Valley. Peerneath Street back when it's all debt roads and half house primary and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, now she's in BC. She's got Southern California. The legend. I'll thank you for saying so. I've burned. I, I, I, I was busy to burn when I was a young, young lad. That was, that was always nice. Yeah. Tim, I don't, I, it's funny. If you're desperately wanting to see some of my photography, if you search for Alex Kilby and I'll put my name in it, he says, oh my God, I can, I can hear my friend in America rolling her eyes going, oh my God, why would you tell me your real name? But it's, you've found my name. If you, no, you're not very late Calvin. Come on, get a glass and come sit down. Yeah. If you, if you go on Facebook and check my name, my photographs are public. So you don't need to follow me as a friend or I don't need to accept your friend. And that will give you an idea about some of my non-portrait stuff. I don't really kind of post it too much. But anyway, that, that's the thing. Yeah. I think Calvin, you said you're like a, like New York sort of way. Something like that. And, and Tanya said, yes, she was in the Hoffey house. So I was at Tanya. Yeah. I was in Peony Street back in like 84. We moved there June 84 when the Hoffey house was, well, it was what it was. You know what I mean. We got Max from, from DC. I liked DC, but as I said, my friend used to live in Silver Spring. And, and it says, and Chopper Carson says my early videos were great, but already great. Oh, okay. It says, no surprise, he hit the hundred K mark. So he's, what he's saying is in implication, he's saying my early videos are really good. And now the latest stuff is a bit, it, you've got second album syndrome. So they are really nice. Is that, that was down near the, I'm trying to think, really. So with me and Tanya and I having a private conversation, that's very rude. Was that down near the reed beds that actually when they, when they burnt in like 1985, 84. That was me and a guy called Ryan Burnett and we made a little fire and it may have got out of hand. Anyway, I didn't say that. Got a cup of tea. It is, yeah, yeah, rough. It is, I thought, you know, often I'm usually not a numbers guy. And absolutely, you're quite right. I don't think we should do this for other people. But I do feel that there is a time he, of course I would say this now because I'm doing exactly this, but there is a time to celebrate your achievements. And if you do something that you feel proud of, then tell me, say, do you know, this is awesome. And I have to say, you know, it's, I really mean so much to me. That's, you know, the guys are here. You know, you're here, you know, the other 99,982. See, up and down, up and down, up and down. But this is what, this is, if you focus, this is probably a good case in point, if you focus on these numbers too much and you go, ooh, ooh, ooh, it's too much. Oh no, it's gone up four and now it's gone down. Does this change how you appreciate the content? Does this change how you feel about your photography? Do these numbers of likes and things like that? See, it's gone to three. Has the channel changed, right? And the stuff like that? No, it hasn't, right? It's a number. Hopefully we'll get to 100 and that'll be awesome. But it doesn't change the channel. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't mean that prior to 100,000, it's like, it's a crap channel. And then after 100,000, it's kind of cool or something like that. It just doesn't change. Nothing here. Okay, we've got Tony. Coffee before work, seven o'clock in the morning. Yeah, take the day off, Tony. You know, let's just say, you know, it's just, let us look up or something like that. We've got Stuart Fleck, thank you. Stuart, you're saying his reviews and exposures of photographers and insights. Yes, yeah, Tonya, yeah. We were playing making fires and things and it just, mmm, it got out of hand. But we kept that under our noses for many years. Yeah, yeah, so it was always kind of, you know, we've got, always quite, for a hot new Jersey, a groove hole. Yes, I do do critiques. We do like a live critique on a Sunday. There was supposed to be one on last Sunday or this previous Sunday. But unfortunately I've had some other things going on. So I didn't have a chance to sort of that. But I do, it's like an epic session. It's like five hours or something. And so it's quite long going. You know, it's always, you know, it's nice to sort of say, yeah, to see the guys. And again, you know, obviously we go back to the numbers thing. It's such a thing in the real world, isn't it? I say the real world, talking about, you know, social media and thinking that social media is the real world because it isn't. Absolutely isn't. You know, I seem to, if you go back to sort of photo school days and when I was starting as a photographer, it wasn't, I want hundreds of thousands of likes or something like that. It was like I want 10 people to like my work. Or I want the people in the room with me to like it. You know, and that was the student sort of thing because we used to do in-person critiques, everybody put their work up on the wall. And I was trying to think there was like, I think by the time we got to the third year, there was probably 15, no, there wasn't even 15, there was like 10, 10 people in my class. And that was kind of thing. You wanted out of that 10, if half the people liked it, that was pretty cool. You know, that was like, wow, amazing. And, you know, it's kind of, social media, I think it's great in a number of ways because, you know, we can reach a lot of people. I can reach all you guys. I mean, holy crap. You know, we're talking to people all over the world here. And it doesn't cost anything. And it's wonderful to reach out and kind of invite myself into your home like a bad smell. But conversely, you guys are coming, you're reaching out and you're going, I appreciate your work. You have given me inspiration. You've encouraged me to pick up a camera. You've encouraged me to continue with the thing that we do, which we all love, which is taking photographs in whichever way that we feel is appropriate. And I love the fact that social media or YouTube has given us the opportunity to connect, to speak or be in a very one-sided conversation with each other. And I just, I love it. And if I had never done this, if I had never had the support of you guys, I would never have spoken like, as you regular viewers of the channel know, I'm a huge fan of Voby Olberhout. And I did that interview with him a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, and he's invited me to his house. And I was like, that's awesome. We're going to go visit because I'm going to be in Cape Town in December. And, you know, and go up there. So you guys have given me the chance to meet some of my heroes. And I love this. I think it's absolutely, that's not very self-centered, but it's all because of you, you know, not you guys. It's you. It's the person on the other side of this camera, you know, that I absolutely adore. Because you allow me to talk about the thing that actually I enjoy the most talking about. I have had moments in my career, as a photographer of many years, where, you know, I have been concerned about my, you know, my business, my portrait photographer business and stuff like that. And I've been worried because I have nothing else to fall back on. Well, I thought I had nothing else to fall back on. Because this is really all I know. I worked in the theatre when I was in my 20s. But aside from working in the theatre as a lighting engineer and doing photography, I have not done anything else. So the fact that I can connect, or that you connect with me, I think it's probably more appropriate, it really gives me the same thrill that I used to get when I would operate a show. And there would be an audience of like 600 people, 1200 people, whatever, or 50,000, you know, in some cases. And there weren't necessarily, they weren't there for me. They were there for the experience. And I think that's the kind of thing. I've always felt that, you know, you're not really here for me, you're kind of here because we are enjoying photography together. And as we sort of look forward from 100,000 into the next sort of, you know, sort of gross of the studio. I'm not the studio, the channel. It's just a business, me talking about the studio. Then, you know, I think it would be nice to continue with that sort of connection of just, you know, talking about the thing that we all love, that we all care about. So we've got a mega, mega-pint. Was that a mega-pint? I don't know. I must have missed something. We've got Tony. This whole community thing. The parts make a hole. Yeah, you know, this is the thing. It is nice to say. I mean, we've got MTK, who's saying it's a recommended channel for so many people. You know, MTK, you're saying about lowly mobile shooter and stuff like that. Do you know what? It's like the cameras that a lot of us actually start with. You know, analog, you know, in the wet, dark room days. It was, those cameras were nothing. They're a box that moves film in front of a mirror. You know, it's nothing special. It's what you do with it. The camera is merely at all. You know, whether you have a little iPhone, MacGuffin sort of thing, or you have that EOS R5 versus Nikon, which one is better? Nikon has destroyed things. The camera does make a photographer. You know, it is absolutely what you do with it. You know, thank you, John. Long Johnson has asked the questions. I wonder, can one make a living off of YouTube with a channel with 100 subs? The short answer to that is yes. It is. It's a living of sorts. I live in a little, in a garret, in a rundown shack or thing, and I hear the can of baked beans over a store live. Let me just reconnect. There we go. Okay, right. There we go. Okay, so this is still streaming. There we go. Yes, sorry, I got a notification from OBS saying something about not. I know. There we go. I think somebody has been watching movies on the Wi-Fi at the same time. They're probably with my wife. Jumping up. Can you make a living? Yes, so you live in a garret and you can make a living. It's better than a gaming channel. I'm in a couple of discord servers talking about improving the YouTube channels and stuff like that. And they get like 400,000, 500,000 views of video, right? Which is like I was like, wow, that would be amazing. And they made like $10. It's like, really? That's crazy. $10 for like a 500,000 view video? Wow. So it's a thing. I would encourage it. I mean, if you want to, if you are interested in making a channel about your own photography, stuff like that, I would encourage you to do it. Do it. It is not hard. If you can take photographs, you can record video, right? And you guys have watched my videos. You know that my audio can be a little bit suspect. It's not a major thing. But if you want to make videos, do it. Just do it, man. Nobody's stopping you. Nobody is going to sit there and say, you know, it's a whole, you know, you can't do it. Because whatever, you know, people may have said to me, you can't do it. Why would anybody want to talk about that? But you know, it's, it doesn't matter. But, yeah, Long Johnson. Yeah. The monetization views thing, it basically boils down to who watches your videos. You know, gaming channels is watched by teenagers. Teenagers don't have any money to spend. You know, and obviously the demographic who broadly watch the content here is wider, you know, and it's older with more disposable income. So the monetization, you know, the ad revenue is better. But it's not, I'm watering, you know, the guys like MrBeast and people who get like, you know, 50, 100 million views on a video, you know, they're raking, they're raking the bucks. You know, millions, millions of dollars a month. But that's not what we do, man. I could talk about gear and make millions of dollars a month. So today we're going to talk about this. This is not actually Gaffer tape. This is PVC insulation tape, which I bought by mistake thinking it was Gaffer tape because it is black and I just picked it up off the shelf. I wasn't thinking and then I got home and like, this is not Gaffer tape. This is some stupid thing that doesn't work for what I wanted. But that's what happens when you go shopping in a, you know, in B&Q, which is like a home depot with a four year old in tow. You just kind of go black thing on shelf looks like Gaffer tape. I will pick it up. So it's all sorts of things. But yeah, if you want to create your own channel, I'm happy to do like a little short video just saying, you know, 17 mistakes that I made if I was starting my YouTube channel again. Oh my God, have you done number six? You know, we could do something like that. Have you done number six, which is a mistake because I bet you have. You know, it's all sorts of things like that. So here we go. So we're at 987 or 99,987, which sounds a bit more impressive. So I think, you know, it's one of the things that I really do. It's all right. See, Russ has showed up late. All right. You know, we just been killing time till you got here, Russ. It's cool, man. I say Russ. Oh, man. I don't know. So I say man a lot because it was growing up in South Africa in the 80s. It was like, hey, man, you know, that kind of thing. Yes. Do you know what? I am a big fan of Bob Ross. I like Bob Ross. He is a happy, he is a happy man. The documentary about Bob Ross, I think was on Netflix was very interesting because unsurprisingly, you know, after he passed away, there was a lot of brouhaha and some behind the scenes wrangling about his estate and things. And I thought it was very interesting. But yeah, if you do get a chance to watch that documentary on Bob Ross, you know, I would recommend it. I think, you know, it's a nice sort of guy. And I enjoy his stuff. And I think his approach to painting is probably that's something that, you know, I would say is not lost or wouldn't be out of place in photography in so much as like, he has a, or had a, I say I'm going to make some huge generalizations. He had some rough understands about, you know, like traditional approaches and traditional things. But he then found a technique that he enjoyed because obviously he didn't invent the wet painting thing. And I need to run with him. And he made, he introduced other people into the joy of painting. Hey, that's a good show. That's a good title for a show. You know, and that's kind of what I would like to tap into some of that with the channel is that, you know, none of us are going to be an urban pen. None of us are going to be any leave of it or, you know, or Avedon or any of the big names. And that's fine. So long as we make work that we're happy about making that we enjoy it that we go, do you know, I like that photograph that I took enough to, to put it up on the wall to, to enjoy these things. And, and that's what I want you, you, I want you to do. I want you to be happy to pick up a camera and just try stuff out and not worry too much about the perfection. If you want to go that route, if you want to go the group F64 thing and be ultra perfectionist, then both means do so. But also, you know, there are, there are other people who, who don't really fuss about that thing too much. They're quite happy to play with the Holger and, you know, a toy camera or you learn photography or whatever you want to call it. It's all, it's all 100%. You know, it's all, it's all good. You know, Bob was a storyteller and I enjoyed him very much. And, and I will always remember introducing my wife to his work in a hotel suite in Frankfurt of all places where we were like sitting in, in the hotel after a long day of wandering around Frankfurt. And, oh look, there's Bob Ross on AFN. And, yeah, as you do, back in those days when you used to have to watch whatever was on the local TV in foreign countries. Like, we've watched a thing about people moving to Spain from Germany in German when they were speaking French and then speaking Spanish and then being converted into English between two, because it was the only language of the two that spoke and then the English was being converted into German. It was like, but we watched an hour of that stuff. It was like, anyway, yeah, it's like, you know, just, just make your own thing. Make your stuff. You know, just, just create photographs. And if you have, so we're in the mid 80s now, 1986. That was a happy time. Stranger things. See, we're all one of the Stranger Things. Huff Photo. There's, there's, there's a name for a while. Hey, Huff Photo. So where's Huff Photo from? Is it Huff Photo or Huff, Huff Photo? I don't know, because you've got two apps there. So I kind of want to go Huff Photo, but is it Huff Photo or is it Huff Oto or who knows? Or he will, he will tell us in a second. Yeah, it's like, you know, so we were just talking about Bob Ross and, and I mentioned Bob Ross on the channel before. And there was a couple of people go, I can't believe you talked about Bob Ross. How dare you talk about Bob Ross on a channel that's all about art. And it's like, well, why not? Because he was, he was kind of happy to do his own thing. That's, you know, that's, that's what we do. And, you know, Calvin has sort of said here that, you know, he used to, so I'm assuming, yeah, Calvin, I think I can sort of say, it's Huff, oh, Huff, it was Huff Photo. Okay, but it's sort of good. Yeah, it is, it is, it's hard because, you know, we do, we do create stuff and we want people to say, I like you, I like what you do. I like what you make. I like the thing that you took. And what not. And that's all kind of, it is nice. And I appreciate that there is a lot of that because we all want that. We all want some validation. Maybe validation, the word. Yeah, okay. We want, we want people to validate us and what we do. We want people to like it. And as we go through life, the people whose opinions we want to have as validation change, you know, it's all sorts of stuff. Chopper has asked, Chopper Carson has asked an interesting question here which is, how many painters have also done photography based art? I want to say Chuck Close. I don't know if that's probably a thing. I mean, Chuck Close is obviously a thing. He's a painter. Oh, see, see, see, see, see, I've got gin and tonic. I've got almonds, Alesto selection almonds, which are delicious as a snack, he says, and the dregs of a bottle of champagne, which is kind of where I'm a slurring a bit. Yeah, as I think, you know, you're right, this is a validation. We want to know, because it's unquantifiable, we can't take boxes with the photography that, you know, what we create. We can submit it into competitions. We can submit it, you know, into galleries and stuff like that. But there isn't like a checkbox. It's not like a lot of things that we were taught at school growing up, in maths especially, that you're not allowed to just suck the answer out of your thumb. If somebody says to you, you know, divide, you do long division of, you know, 6,000 by three and a half, you can't just go, it's whatever. And if somebody can work that out, please let us know in the comments, because I can't. But you have to show the process. You guys say boom, and your teacher gives you marks, goes right, right, right, right, right. But any sort of creative process is not like that. It's not quantifiable, it's not something that you can just sit there and go, you know, today I took photographs and took four out of the five boxes. You need to kind of, you need to be happy with yourself. You yourself needs to be happy with what you took. But then again, you sort of sit there and you go, that's too easy. I like what I took today or I didn't like what I photographed today. So you look for other people to tell you that it was okay. To tell you that it was fine, that it was good or what have you. And especially in the early days when you're with a camera, that you, I think a lot of us put too much emphasis on what other people think about the work that we create, what we put together. And unfortunately, especially for a lot of people who are new to photography or coming back to it, and who are looking for assistance, looking for direction, looking for help online. There are far too many people who are happy to tell you what's wrong. Oh, you should have done this because I would have done that. I would have done the next thing. All the guys who I've had the privilege of talking to about their photography, the thing that I've stressed from the word go is that it is about their journey and not mine. I can sort of say, look, have you considered this point of view? Have you considered that point of view? If I were there, I might have changed this. That's something that you think might be an interesting avenue to pursue, if not, whatever. But the problem is for most people when you go on, and you put it on a Facebook group or you put it on a Twitter or a, I watch them call it, like a Reddit post or a subreddit. There are too many people who just want to show you what they know, and they're using your work as a platform to show off their knowledge. So let's say last week they learned something about rule of thirds. So they're going to go and find all the pictures that they can find that don't conform to rule of thirds. So they're going to go, oh, look, but you should do the rule of thirds, because look how much I know about the rule of thirds. And it's stuff like that. And we don't want to, we don't want to do that. Why would we want to do that? We're all big enough and ugly enough to sort of go, let's create some work that we like. And if somebody else likes it as a bonus, if somebody else doesn't like it, then that's cool. You know, that's all sorts of things. So George has given me a handy out from that ramble. Thank you, George. I'm asking if there's many factors because I seem to favour a black and white. The simple reason behind the black and white thing, he says eating a walnut, not walnut, I'm sorry, an almond, because that's what you do on live streams. You just eat nuts that get stuck in your throat. The thing with the black and white pictures is that a lot of the photography that I enjoy, a lot of photography that I find interesting at this stage in my life are, for one to a better word, old school. They're from the early days of photography where they were experimenting with things, where they were trying different ideas out that they were pushing their boundaries. And by definition, most of that work is black and white. I do like colour photography. I don't have a preference particularly between black and white and colour. I find colour work from the 60s, 70s and the early 80s, especially the early 80s, very interesting. The 80s probably more so because there's a feel to it because it feels like it's all transparency work that is then ever so slightly underpolished as it were. Because obviously we're talking some pre-digital days and stuff like that. And transparency work, so if we look at the work of Patrick, and I will absolutely mispronounce his last name, but Patrick... If I think about, I can't say it, Dimash Elie, one you know who I'm talking about. If I look at his work, those transparencies have a kind of very wet feeling, which sounds weird. And they have a transparent feeling to them. It's a very odd thing to sort of try and put your hand on. But if you have a shot transparency film, especially sort of media format and large format, you kind of know what I'm talking about. If it's high-key, so there's lots of white or blank spaces in the transparency, the image seems quite luminescent because it's... You know who I'm talking about? Dimash Elie, there we go. Which is not how you pronounce it at all. I could talk about La Tigue or La Trigue. And the thing is, when I've been looking at subjects to talk about in photography, it's either been very extreme stuff in terms of age, so it's kind of like very old work or more new work. So the 70s, 80s, 90s after a fashion doesn't really get much of a look in, although it should. So it's kind of sort of a thing. Alex B, I am a... You said you're a joy to spend time with. Well, thank you. It is a pleasure to spend time with you too. And we've got Gordon who's asking about other people's opinions. Yeah, that kind of whole thing about people saying, like, black and white, what color? I can't decide. Tell me, is it black and white? Is it color? Which one? Why? Why would you do that? What works for you? I get it that sometimes it's hard to... You want other people's feedback and stuff like that. But fundamental choices like that, you should have made when you're taking pictures. When you're making the picture, when you're taking the photograph, that's when you decide if it's going to be color or black and white, not when you stick it up for random people to take a thumbs up and see who likes the most. Have the... I'm going to be quite crass here. Have some balls, man. Have the courage of your conviction to say, this is how this photograph should be. You know, it's... It's... You know, it's one of the... I know that's not necessary. You know, you're not asking whether it should be. But that is... I've always been surprised when you see that kind of question. It's like, you know, who knows? Who knows? I don't know. Yeah, we've also said, might is clear, right? In transparencies, anything that's lighter is basically just kind of base in the transparency. So it does have a very weird kind of feel when you look at it over a light table. It's very strange, sort of thing. No, it's my pleasure, Gordon. This is kind of the thing. We should do more of these, I think. I have a... There's a lady who... One of the things I'm very slack about, which I wish that I was better about, is responding to all your comments. Because I do read the majority of them. And often I see them, they pop through when I'm on a school run or something like that, and I think, oh, I don't respond to that, but I get a chance to come back. So I have asked a friend of mine to help me take up some of this slack. At least reach out and say, look, you have been heard. I heard, you know, and respond to some of your comments. And, you know, she's... My wife has been chopped in from the other room. Demarchelier, Demarchelier. See, my wife has no... She knows what I'm talking about. So she's going to jump in. And I thought, I was thinking about what to do. And I thought it might be nice to touch on this conversational thing with the channel, because I like this. I like this pretty much. That it would be great to ask you guys, you know, we've got questions. Excuse me. You know, Gordon asked about the color black and white sort of thing. There are these... I almost said they're like the basic questions, but they're questions that sort of pop through all of our minds. And you go, what is this? And as a thing, the reason with a whole lot of YouTube stuff is a lot of things never get talked about because they are not view worthy. And if you are going to invest time making a video and it's not going to get 100,000 views or something to get this or something to get that, then for a lot of people it would not get made because for people who are down the bottom of the rung for one of a better word, you know, get like maybe a few thousand views or something, they're not going to make any money from doing that. And the people who are at the higher end, and I'm talking about much higher than me, who are doing kind of like 100, 200, 300,000, 400,000, a million, two and a half million views a video, they are making a video that can take a week or two, two weeks, three weeks. I was watching a video today where the guy, he spends three days, three days or 14 hour days writing the script for a video. So he needs to be make sure that video, and this is on the photography channel, but he needs to make sure that video gets my balls because that's his job. So there's lots of topics, especially in the niche or the genre, niche, niche, I say niche, because I speak the Queens English, but that's the sort of thing. Some of you say niche, I say tomato, you say tomato, I say potato, you say herb. So there we go. But you know, there's a lot of topics that don't ever get discussed because they're not enough of a video. But I thought it would be nice to get some questions, while we're in the 90s, grunge is coming, grunge, grunge, grunge. 1991 still feels like the 80s though, doesn't it? You guys had this thing where you have like decades, they change numerically, but there's like a layover for a couple of years. So 1991, 92 still felt like the 80s, 93, 94, 95 we're now into kind of the proper 90s, and then you have 30. So I thought it might be nice for Laura, for that to see what we're talking about, to maybe read out a question. Living Texas drones says that they have loved photography a long time. To them, looking at what they want to photograph is as important as taking the picture. And they are quite right. Look at that, we're down to the 90s. Yeah, that's so cool. This isn't cool how it goes up, but then it goes down, it goes up, then it goes down. Yeah, that's the thing. I think it is lovely, especially for people who do photograph out in the wild. Oh, we're back into 1991. For people who photograph out in the wild, and who in the landscape, I think you have a rare pleasure that you can exist in a place, in a space, in a time, and it goes for things and all sorts, and let that emotion wash over you. One of my absolute joys is being in an environment, let's say a large environment, sort of like a landscaping kind of thing, of just myself with my camera. And back in the days when I smoked, I used to sit there on a rock or something like that and be distant from whatever and just have a smoke and just wait for the place to speak to me. For me to sort of connect with it and for it to reach out. And cities do that in a similar sort of way, but ever so slightly differently, that cities are very busy, but you can be utterly alone in a city and pick out the things that the thousands, 10,000, 100,000 maybe, other people walk past every single day that they don't notice it. They don't give it a second glance because they are reading their paper or they are listening to their headphones or their nose is in a phone or something like that and you are the only person who noticed that thing that you photograph. And that's how do you put that into words? How do you explain to somebody that feeling about being privy to a moment that is yours and yours alone and that you have had the pleasure and the privilege of photographing so that somebody else can share in that? You know, that's kind of the... I should write this stuff down. Do you know, if I had a channel I could make videos about this kind of thing. Look at that, 9.95, 9.95. Adam has asked about when I refer to myself as a photographer and the title feels like it carries a lot of weight as a beginner. If you take a picture, you're a photographer. There we go. I don't think there's a title. I don't think there's... Here in the UK, if you're a painter you could be part of the Royal Academy so you could say Alex Kirby R.A. because you're part of the Royal Academy. And you get some sort of like kudos. As somebody who takes photographs which is a democratic kind of art form because it is not limited to a... You don't have to have a skill. Obviously you can't have a skill with anything but you don't need a base level of skill to take a photograph. You need that. Look at that, it says sleep well on it. What is that? Sleep well. I'm supposed to go a bit. You don't need a base level of skill. You don't need to spend years practicing something. You just need a tool in your hand and the ability to use that tool is very easy. So in many respects, the word photographer I think is kind of redundant. You are somebody who takes photographs. There isn't a requirement for you to do certain things to be a photographer. You just take photographs. My son took... I won't say it was his first photograph because it wasn't but he took some pictures the other day on my phone which... I think... I'm going to say that is his self-portrait. So let's just say I don't think Richard Aberton needs to worry just at the moment. So could we say could you say he's a photographer? I took a photograph. So why isn't he? 94. See, we go down. So yeah, he takes photographs so he's a photographer but I think that the label that we put on ourselves often holds you back especially as a beginner because you feel now that if you label yourself as a photographer you're now running with the big dogs that you are running with whoever you look up to as a photographer and you compare themselves or all of a sudden you have you put on that blazer of I am now the same as that person that person over there and you're not, you're your own person. William A. Augustine is not to everybody's taste right? He's controversial he's what we call in the UK Marmite photographers a yeast spread and it's very divisive either you love it or you hate it in fact that's their marketing tool and he gives excuse my excuse my my crassness but he gives zero shit what people think about his photography he says you like it or you don't am I a photographer? I am a photographer, I don't care if you think I'm an photographer or not and that's kind of the thing that I think ultimately as a new photographer 998 it's been so long so I'm getting silly excited I'm going to take a screenshot of you guys look at that 998 boop boop boop text all your friends right now 999 look at that on the count of three everybody unsub alright so it is I think you know it's just it's all the 9s yeah you're quite right Tanya I can't even say what is 9 in Africans it's it's my wife is going to laugh when I say it's something like that so it is oh you see look at that see how it trolls us do you think that person knows do you think that person knows that they were the one who is it look at that why is Lucas well done Lucas who knows thank you ever so much guys do you know I really we're going to do like a little self portrait let's do a self portraity thing where's the turnaround thing not live off we're going to do a little self portrait there we go 9 now it's turned back to 999,000 just cheeky cheeky we'll have to wait again there we go because he's now somebody somebody there we go thank you everybody hey there we go 100,001 whoo whoo 2 yeah so there we go thank you I really it's been a long time coming a year and a half 2001 see people are looking at that somebody keeps subbing and unsubbing something like that every summer imposter syndrome strictly marker there is a video coming up about imposter syndrome so I will talk about it but yeah look at it it goes up and down now we've got 200,000 thank you how quickly can we get to zero that's the question nobody ever makes a video about that nobody see we get to do this all night we get to go up and down so we celebrate every time it goes up to 100,000 we just go whoo yeah but thank you I really it does mean a huge amount it really is it's one of those 100,000 I do I get a silver play button I was just telling my folks today hey 99,000 somebody somebody on the stream is doing they want to see me somebody is just it's it's going up and down now there's a big see even there's a hornet or something that's outside wants to come in yay it's like that thing from space 802 there we go it really I really do appreciate guys it is so it is so heartwarming and so he says smack it see Shani is supposed to be in bed you see cat lady 74 everybody that's my wife and she is hey 103 she is she is very special to me and she is very supportive of the channel and why have you so Shant yes thank you now go to bed because you won't have to get up early it's it does mean a great deal to me I it's sometimes I feel a bit lost with the channel and sometimes I feel like nobody is listening but you guys are there and I really I wouldn't be here where we are and the channel wouldn't be here without without you guys here I think it is absolutely it means so so very much to me that you enjoy listening to me whenever I talk to people you know have known me for a while and stuff like that the theme that comes out is always I cannot believe that people like listening to me talk especially when we my son hates my singing so the fact that 103,000 people although it's actually it's more because almost 30,000 people that that you know that many people have kind of you know you're there we got all these people and and I think back to the very first time I did a video I was like what if nobody watches and nobody did so that was kind of cool that I was kind of lucky at the beginning that I posted a thing on Facebook as most people do who saw a new channel go hey I'm saw a new channel and a lot of my friends on Facebook are photographers so it kind of did a decent kickstart of the thing but something else which I've never mentioned on the channel which actually draw my attention to my university or the Technicon that I went to more appropriately more correctly I'm actually on they having they reached out to me about a year ago after seeing the channel cheers we're here under 1000 and they reached out to me and said as an ex as part of the Alma Mater would you like to be on our advisory board for the photography class and I said yeah that's pretty cool and it turns out there's a whole bunch of people two of the people on the advisory board are my ex lecturers which is pretty cool you like a film star that's pretty cool one of the other guys is a person who was a year ahead of me a year behind me rather and the head of the department is one of my lecturers as well so it's very interesting to be on there and it's great to be able to help people and I think this is kind of the thing ultimately what this boils down to is that I want to continue to help you guys enjoy your photography to find new ways of expressing yourself through your photography of enriching the way that you see the world and the way that you can express yourself through through whatever whatever medium, whatever tool that you choose to there are other channels who do really great work about you know the technical bits about how to translate technically what you see and how you feel and things if you can't feel that thing if you can't touch it if you can't be part of it if you cannot envision it in your mind in the first place then the no amount of technical ability is going to get you there and you guys were trolling me on the channel because I can see it now because now the up and down and the subscribe there's one more yeah it's gonna get but that's kind of that's the thing that is what keeps me moving all the stuff from the cupboard under the stairs into the lounge setting it up having to get rid of all the flies because we live in an old farmhouse and every time I sit down to make a video there are some flies in the lounge because that's where I photograph and now you may not hear them but they catch me out of the corner of my ear and I'm like I have to hunt them down with the fly spotter so it's because you sit there and we talk about photography and I go through all this sort of stuff and sometimes YouTube tells me people on your channel are not watching the content because they don't care actually they don't say that at all they say people are not regular viewers of your channel are not showing as much interest in your content and you go okay well that's because I know because I'm talking about something that is not wildly interesting stuff like that but you keep coming back you guys keep coming you, you keep coming back and and it is all I keep saying it's because it is because of you so we've got I said earlier my name Alex Kilby if you go in the Facebook group and Warren if you're still online I'll get a link it would be a bit of shameless plugging just to get the Facebook yeah so if you go in the Facebook group and look for me there's a thing I'll tell you if you want to this is my pictures I am most of my photography recently is on Facebook and this is kind of like whatever now obviously there's some personal stuff in there it's all fairly available to see I have no secrets I don't mind but if you go to some of my albums, photos you'll see a lot of my a lot of my kind of work I don't have a website and stuff like that I really it is so great I think there is there is I've said this before and there is a friend of mine in America her and her son years ago we had a table in her kitchen and her son wanted to make like Minecraft videos or something like that and I just didn't even say you are I don't think you should YouTube is only a select few people and and actually it's from that conversation that a lot of this channel's impetus got started because it got me thinking about it because it's nothing like getting you thinking about doing something telling somebody, you know, a child not to do it it's like actually so to S and J if you are watching it, thank you we'll see you soon and J if the play button has arrived by then, I will bring it over it's like what do you do with this in your luggage well because this is how we roll man YouTubers with the thing is we carry our silver play buttons around because it gets us to the front of the line when we're at restaurants do you know who I am so yes it's always things it is really I have to, I could wax lyrical all night about about the fact that it really means a great deal to me because for a long time I was quite lost with my photography you know, those of you who do watch the channel sort of regularly may have seen some of the videos where I've talked about having the studio and its demands on my time and not taking photographs that I particularly wanted to take photographs of and stuff and I started this channel as a possibility of a way from that, of a way beyond that and without any idea I mean you know you start off YouTube and especially if you're looking to pursue it as a career as money making thing it starts off and it goes okay well YouTube go well look you've made a channel, awesome right if you want to be monetized you've made 4,000 watch hours and you've made 1,000 subscribers and when you upload a video and within a day it gets like 10 views and you look and you go wow it's had an hours watch time you think those 1,000 subscribers and a 4,000 watch hours seems a long way away like a long way and then you get to that and you think okay well we're cool you know I've now monetized this is awesome and you know you wait and you wait to see how much money did I make today and it goes well you made 30 dollars and you go ah ah it's not really very good is it this is not going to keep me in clover into the lifestyle to watch I've been in a cup stood but then you know I'm going to get the better but none of that happens without without the people who who enjoy what you talk about who can cut through some of the BS and the mumblings that I occasionally waffle about and go I enjoy that it makes me want to be a cover camera makes me want to go for a photograph not until you watch like four or five of my videos because that kind of helps and for random people who I've never heard of and I appreciate there are lots of people I know some of the names I mentioned when I talk about things when you look at the chat I see names that I recognize like Tanya Tanya and I turns out we actually grew up in the same suburb in South Africa it is a tiny suburb so that's kind of we sort of connect but you know there are all these people that you connect with that you do realize but there are loads of people who I don't ever know your names I don't you don't comment and that's fine and stuff but you come back and you watch the videos day in day out week in week out and you enjoy it and I don't know your name and I can't pick you out and I can't say yeah you're with Mark and Thor we have very few viewers from Arkansas but anyway I can't say thank you to each and every one of you obviously individually because it's I don't know all your names I do know that you sit here and you come in and you watch and you get something from it and then you leave and that's great because hopefully when you are out taking photographs or whatever you do with your camera that you'll be confronted with a situation and maybe my voice will pop into your head and go have you considered this or trying something and that's basically what I got from photo school and what I want to share with you is that I it took me 30 years to realize how lucky I was to be exposed to that kind of stuff and how much it did actually improve my photography and a lot of you are coming to photography in a retirement in your later I say later years I'm going to get a zoomer frame out in my later years of photography I remember but you're coming to it in life and if I can pass on some of that benefit so that at least you can get it you know we'll get some of it then job done you know I think it's we've got it's got we've got film Fridays in Congress thank you ever so much film Friday Calvin's in England I mean whoo England represent you know Shamak I know that you say we should take every photograph instead of and that's fine Shamak if you like a specific genre that's absolutely cool that's I'm not saying that you should photograph everything what I'm sort of saying about genres and stuff is that take inspiration from everywhere and just go with it travel photography is awesome it's a very wide open genre but don't just take pictures like every other travel photographer all right look outside be a documentary travel photographer be a landscape travel photographer be something just don't be just thing that's the technical term don't be thing you know Calvin I'm going to touch on imposter syndrome fairly shortly in one of the videos because it is a huge it is a huge problem and I very nearly dropped out of photo school because of imposter syndrome so there we go hey see I was about to say George but Jorge I'm 48 as well and you know look at this gray gray temples it's you guys the gray thing and the fact that none of my seeds I've been taking on vegetable gardening for the last couple of years none of my seeds now turning up it's it's awful Fort Lauderdale got Switzerland I like to I haven't been to Switzerland for years there was somebody somebody who I know oh there was this guy Hines he actually spent some time I'm rocking an avid hairstyle now hey John see there we go see it's names we were just talking about you know not knowing names of people and stuff but the thing is I don't know your names individually and in fact I think there's only three of you I could pick out of the crowd but if we can get all of you right now around to the house I'll show you my chickens we can share what's left of this and I have a candle gin and tonic downstairs but it is really it is a whole it's a whole thing that I've so much I want to talk to you I'll talk with you about that nothing makes me happier than talking about random stuff about photography and other random things and your support that allows me to keep doing that because this is the thing we know we talked about earlier about algorithms and YouTube pushing things and stuff like that is that it is a game that you need to get so it's interesting it's in my course it's Michael in my real life no our chickens are idiots they just chase me around the whole time we have two normal chickens we have two bantams and a a speckley chicken I don't know what it's called my wife knows the make the brand I don't know the breed but we've called that one spatchcock well I've called it spatchcock I wanted to call them all spatchcock like lemon butter and stuff like that and then my wife said no so we called one spatchcock and I am and then my asher called one of them lettuce and then my wife called them all like Betty and Isabelle and all sorts of things hey Petros how are you doing man that's pretty cool they're awesome but they make the tiniest little eggs what am I supposed to do with this I have scrambled eggs but I like poached eggs so fortunately the two normal chickens they make decent sized eggs but we've got eggs coming out of our ears maybe that will be in the next channel photography in eggs or eggs and chickens or chickens in photography and I'd be like the image and cunning of chicken photographers or something tiniest got a great idea we'll come around for a bry and if anybody is vegetarian we can have halloumi well if you're vegan then we'll have to get actually vegan bry I'm sure we can find something there's also it's lovely I have to say what will happen is I will spend the rest of the night just saying you guys are lovely which you are you're wonderful and I know videos have been a bit slow recently it's mostly because I've had everything obviously there was a push at the beginning of the year I was doing like three videos a week and as much as I enjoyed them some of the topics I was just kind of making stuff up well maybe not making stuff up but but going through sort of waking up again I need to make a video today and what should I talk about I'll talk about this and that's fine because it's the conversational things and what have you but I also want to make content I appreciate the time that you put in the the value of your investment from watching the channel and I want to make videos that are oh thank you man that's so much look at like Jorge Jorge or Michael he's number one fan awesome dude thank you so much he hi Stacey or goodbye who knows it's hello or goodbye you say goodbye I say hello goodbye goodbye I worked on a Beatles show once and I really like hello goodbye yeah so there's it's about finding a balance it's about finding a balance that obviously creates videos that will help the channel grow because you know I'd like to I'd like to talk to more people and you know to help encourage people like yourselves who have found themselves to also enjoy the channel and enjoy the content but also it's a fine balancing act because you have to make content that appeals to some masses but also the thing is hi Stacey Stacey you're in Suffolk where about in Suffolk or you don't know about there in Suffolk or you don't know because we got our tractor down here if you're down by the coast you're slightly on the end but yeah where abouts you from just sort of roughly obviously you don't need to give me a postcode and an address and all that sort of stuff it's yeah yeah I I spent that show that we did the Beatles tribute show that ran for two and a half years we did about 700 odd shows of that so we did the same show 700 times so let's say by the end of the 700 shows you can do the photo spotting you can do all the lighting without even thinking about it so we took a lot of nonsense and do songs on the country and stuff like that it's in my belly what do I get well obviously being completely crass about it there is a money to benefit it's not huge I would say the road doesn't if you're between Ipswich and Colchester stay see then you can't be much far away from me because I'm in Thetford or you're probably in Berry if you're being that elusive about it or like need a market somewhere well Stoma Stoma, you're not in Stoma if you're in Stoma and there you go my wife is still awake she's still watching and she's at Appan centre oh really did you turn there, wow that's who knew look at that look at everybody's like you lived in Fauna Valley you worked in this we live like half an hour from this anyway so the value obviously there's a money to value which is individual on individual video level it's not huge so that's one thing and obviously the channel as a whole gives me an income as does the the the courses excuse me I'm quite heavy ah see she's being mysterious an hour from Thetford but you're in between Berry Stoma hmm in between I thought he said I thought he said oh no Cambridge I said on the A12 sort of way anyway it's Haverhill hmm yeah so the benefit for me is obviously there's adsense and course sales and stuff like that but the other part is and it's hard to quantify this is that I have through a lot of my life um enjoyed sharing information enjoyed passing on stuff look down to 102 but if I I'll just shut up now if I keep talking it will keep going down I've enjoyed this is people who see like a thing come across and go oh there's that channel I don't really watch it anymore see told you down on water I talk it keeps going down hmm it's okay it's asked me and this is what I get before see somebody wants me to go hey again it's this is what happens when you get new time zones this is my stuff getting pushed out um no so what I'm going to say is yeah so aside from the money what is it you just do this for money or you do I think you find if people are doing things just for the money then you get you get a feeling for it right you get a feeling for whatever is that they're doing that there is a hollowness an emptiness that you sort of see it's like this channel we've all seen those channels that are a computerized voice I am looking see hey underneath we're down to 900 why would you sit there and give up I'm going to be the person I'm going to be I'm going to be the person I'm going to run see 99 it will hop it will fiddle around like this right this is whenever there is a live stream I find that suburbs go down because people see things come across there there are notifications I'm going I'm sorry I'm sorry I don't like this um yeah you see these people talking about stuff that is kind of made just to appeal to demographic and what happens is when you when you watch something like that it doesn't it doesn't reason it doesn't connect with you I I I'm always tentative about talking about I in this channel because it's not really it's not really me this channel is not about me let's say this isn't this isn't like one of the you know the channels I got I got witnesses I got on video um yeah this channel is not about me okay so the channel is not it's not Alan Kilby right it's about photography anyway so I have always enjoyed passing on my I don't want to say knowledge but my my interests with other people who want to share that and what happens is that that I create something that I go do you know I really like this I like I'll be over how so I like this photograph I like these things I like that or what have you and would you be interested hearing my opinion and or hopefully getting something from you hearing me talk about these these things and it is nice I would say to be able to make a living an income of some from doing that but there is also those emails they come through unbidden from people all ecstatic oranges see they've been the one they've been the ecstatic orange you have missed out we've been up and down over a hundred thousand loads we were up to like two hundred thousand one point and being also day if we're up all night come on it will be just it's how can I lose like you know all these people it's like five on subs five on subs so it's kind of that was the what I really enjoyed what I love is being able to pass on some of that some of the interest that I have with photography and I kind of I think about something my dad said um a couple of years ago and he said oh you were talking about the regret that I have is that I never went to university I never studied anything after I left school his is 81 now so he left school in the in the mid fifties when going to university was a big deal and and he'd never said this before how can I look how can you look at this seven in like the space of a couple of minutes you guys it's you it's you um you know so he kind of you know he said this is kind of the thing you know it's he didn't get that opportunity and I am I remember that day 96 I remember how excited they mum and dad were when I got accepted to photo school and I also remember I disappointed that he was when I closed the studio but I said to him that I have been given a an opportunity to a do something that I love which is which is is help people explain people share interests and and and knowledge to to other people um you know either through scouts or with my son and or this explainer thing my dad used to always explain if I asked him a question he would answer to me and and I see this as a continuation of of that is that I am able to take some things that I have a modicum of experience within some knowledge about and an interest and a passion for and share them with people who never had the opportunity for whatever reason to pursue these interests for the most part when they were younger you may have considered doing a creative career when you were younger and maybe your parents said no maybe the dice didn't fall that way or something like that and you now want to do this and I had the benefit I was lucky enough to fall the dice fell in my in my favour for doing something and and I have the I have the ability because I appreciate that also not everybody does have the ability to to pass on interest and pass on expectations in a way that is actually engaging and I dare say interesting um and and I feel that it would be a crying shame that if if this was not passed on that you can't say to people look there are other options the technical things all the things they are important but there is so much more to this that you don't get from the books that you don't get from the tutorials and things that you find when you're looking to improve your photography that were dare I say between the cracks when I studied photography obviously there was a whole module on visual communication but it's those things in between it's the things that are in between the main supports of the art form that make it come alive that make your photography better that whatever better is a whole other discussion and really this is kind of kind of the things that Calvin it should be every live video should be um should be on um it should be on on on youtube to rewatch later on I don't have to I don't necessarily have to do anything specific yeah this is um he was a he's a jigs this is what happens when you do live streams of people who who go I there are people who just don't like live streams that's kind of kind of it um I think that that's the thing it's it's um that's kind of thing you know when I hear stuff obviously we've spoken um that that's what I mean I I sit there and I go you know that's that's awesome man that is that is fab you know that you know seeing an rpm like like 10 or something like that you're going to go oh that's cool but listening to people to sharing stories with people to to hearing how I have been able to connect with with you in some some way and and help you rediscover your own path through photography then you know that's that's that's that is awesome um you know that it's all sorts of things yeah it is you know it's see Hickeness, hi Hickeness, and we've been doing this like almost two hours now and we've been over a hundred thousand a few times, but that's cool, you're here, everybody pretend, we haven't been over a hundred thousand yet, okay, we'll just pretend, yeah it's kind of it's one of the things, the channel is weird, everybody who watches the channel is awesome, everybody who subscribes the channel is even awesome, but there are some people for whom there is a definition of what they like, what they don't like, and everybody has a finite amount of attention to give, and when you do things like this, I don't want to say it separates the week from the chat because that's kind of the wrong impression, but there will be people who see this thing and I haven't got time, I don't like, live streams don't like this, I don't like that, whatever, and they're just kind of unsub, which is a thing, but you know, my mantra for 2022 should be don't chase the views, don't chase the views, Steve from Texas, it's cool, I think looking at Hickeness and his new videographer, you know, I think this is kind of, you know, it's the more I kind of listen to, you know, I hear from people watching the channel, things like that, oh look at that, 999, should we do another selfie, I'll do a selfie part too, another one, just for people who are not here now, or people who are now, because I could, let me just fix the hair, all right, so I've got Abaddon kind of hair, here we go, is it going to kick, is it going to kick over, is it going to go down, is it going to go down, we're going to do that, there we go, it's going to do 999, just pretend, that looks, my hair looks terrible, it's, you know, it's going to go down, this is going to happen every time it gets near 100,000, isn't it, it's going to go up and down, and it's, yeah, I think we'll, I'm going to say I would take over 10,000, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's kind of, you know, it's just, this has been a very long waffle about me sort of going, why, why do I do this, I think it boils down to the fact that when I was, when I was young, I had that benefit of, I don't know, it's like, it's like, is somebody, maybe I should just go to the post to get rid of it, there's a, there's a post here, whoops, that's the wrong thing, oh, because otherwise you'll see, sorry, I could see what I'm doing, all my, my things, see if I go analytics, this video hasn't had any views since it was published, oh, the subscribers is another thing, I'm going to get rid of that post, there's, I think it's a post, I think there's, there is a post that is, this post that's going around, are people, it's coming up on the things and people just, I'm subbed, and it, no, why would I do that, screw it, you know, if you, if you, if you don't, eh, it's a mystic, they're too busy muck around on another screen, oh, ridiculous, Merlo, do you know what you're doing? Okay let's get a kebab and go to a disco, all right, okay, yes, I've collected, I've actually made another 100,000, let's get another selfie, Woo hoo, selfie, selfie. Hello everybody, that's a terrible selfie. Jesus, let's try this way. No, you don't want to see my teeth. What is, there we go, that is awful. Oh God, there we go. Hey, it's like, if you've ever watched Spaced, there's a channel for sitcom from channel four. Yeah, from the early 2000s. And they go, whee, and it is red with the exception of Riocca. If you'd like to donate red wine to the channel, anything but Riocca, thank you very much. Beaujolais, quite nice. Beaujolais Belage. Yeah, there's also some stuff, egg and gray, whee, thank you, thank you everybody. It is lovely to once again, reach 100,000, I shouldn't just do this all the time. I say, all right, everybody unsub, and then tomorrow we'll just do this again. It's like, yeah, we'll go, bonk. Yeah, boom, it's almost, yeah, it's almost finished. This was a bottle of hideous sec, hidden sec. I was looking at the Champagnes in, not, I don't often shop in Tainsbury's because I find their stores quite dystopian, but I was looking at Champagnes. I thought work about Bollum Moe, but it was just gonna be me and the wife, so I figured, yeah. No, it is, I really, yeah, I very much appreciate it. I know this sounds like a stuck record tonight, but if I think about, I think about my grandpa Willie, who, he passed away when I was, I would have been like eight at the time. And I don't know what camera he used to have, but I know he was very much in the manner of the keen amateur up in Scotland, and in his house in Rutherglen, there was a, they lived in a one-up, one-down thing. And under the stairwell, he had a dark room, and there was always kind of weird chemicals that, you know, as a kind of a seven-year-old, you were told, don't go in there and play with the chemicals and stuff, but they had like the funny smell, and obviously Fix has got a very distinctive smell, and so you stop, you know, obviously vinegar, so the smell of acetic acid, and you know, Fix has its ish smell. And whenever I processed film, whenever I was in the dark room or whatever, the smells and all the tactile nature of things and stuff would take me back to that. And it's, all of this kind of stems from him and my father doing basically what I do now, which is, I've showed an interest in something and they took the time to introduce me to it, to draw back that curtain, you wanna rap, wax lyrical, on the alchemy of photography, because it is an alchemy both on a physical level and both on a visual level, that there is magic and there's a mystery to it. And I think ultimately, you know, we shouldn't forget that, that it isn't just lenses and pixel counts and sensor sizes and stuff like that, it's things that we are drawn to. And I think on that note, I am going to, before I really get mordlin', because if I think about that stuff too much, it gets me thinking. Anyway, if I get really mordlin', it'll be too much. Anyway, so ladies, gentlemen, for the second time this evening, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, it's been awesome actually. I don't know anybody else who's actually got over 100,000, like, six times. Do you think I get six play buttons? That would be awesome. It has been an absolute pleasure talking with you both this evening, you know, sharing our journeys together over the last year and a half. And for perspective, it took a year to get 50,000 subs, so it's taken six months to get, what have you. There is, yeah, if I could invite you all around right now, then I would. I do feel that now that COVID-E kind of shit is hopefully receding into the rear view mirror that we can have a proper get together at some point. I know that obviously there's quite a few people in the States. Some people in South Africa have already reached out to me and said, hey, you're a few, if you don't know this way, you know, come through. I might like to do some things in the UK. There's a guy in Spain who has suggested some get-togethers and things. And I think it'll be nice. I think it'll be lovely to take this thing here and get rid of it and have a chat with you all in person, because I've got a role of UPVC to do, but we need to get rid of it. So those of you who stuck around from the beginning of the stream, you all know that this was bought in error. It was supposed to be gaffer tape, but anyway. That's my next channel, is how to go shopping for home ways properly. Something like that. Yet, Nicholas, I'm gonna assume you all, I'm terribly sorry, you're here. Right, Nicholas has gone here, I'm gonna cut it off. Thank you, everybody. It has been absolutely awesome. I can't adequately describe how deeply thankful I am to all of you for being here, for me, actually starting the stream, because I have done a critique once where I forgot to actually start the stream and I spent an hour talking to myself. Which is like, ah, you know, it's all sorts of things like that. Yeah, Nicholas, I'm so sorry, you turned up to go, how are you ever live stream? And now we're all gonna go. It's a bit, Nicholas, thank you. I see, you know, it's great. Warren's here, you know, everybody. All you guys, you know, this week is Jubilee week here in the UK. So, old Queenie, she's been on the throne for 70 years. Wow, that's, you know, I'm a granny, I'm gonna live forever. So that's pretty cool. You know, and I'm sure there'll be lots of things going on and as much as we tend to forget about these things here in the UK, that is an historic moment that will probably not happen again. So, you know, it might actually be worth photographing. Who knows, it's those kind of things. But, you know, it just goes to show that the words of one of my old lecturers rang true when we were sitting around at a photo school in 1994, in the run-up to the South African elections, you know, with the ANC and all that sort of stuff. And he said, look at you guys, you're sitting around smoking, talking crap, and being lazy students outside in the street, history is happening, we're going to photograph it. And did we? No, we did not. So don't be that person. Go out this weekend, find some history, go and photograph it, or make your own history. But anyway, ladies, gentlemen, once again, all of you, I love you all from the bottom of my heart, and thank you for making this channel what it is. Anyway, so 100,004 subscribers, who knew? Anyway, stick around. I'm sure that there will be a new video soon, and thank you ever so much. I really do appreciate it so much.