What's your favorite Youtube photo-related channel?

Another channel I like is

I won’t link the Youtube channel because it is Hungarian, but Google translate does a decent job. His most interesting articles are adapting projector optics for MILCs, detailing the process and then showing pictures, eg

You may or may not like Marcus Pix’s work:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5KQC6OV3e19MAc2YrJLVmA
but I have at least two things in common with him:

  • a preference for small, light and portable gear
  • the believe that working with a flash often improves an image

He is also reviewing gear in such a dramatically different way than others (way more practically oriented I think). I find it really refreshing to not being blasted to death with rediculus technical stats that help no one (also he does that but in a different way).

2 Likes

None.

  • I don’t understand enough English

  • I’ve never understood the value of video for still images (according to the well-known old Chinese proverb, a good photo is worth a thousand seconds of video).

  • For technical questions, I don’t need to see someone’s face talking to (?) me, and 5 minutes of reading a well-written text is worth more than 30 minutes of video.

5 Likes

On this I agree, but one thing I like about videos is when they convey the joy and wonder of photography.

I find “the ultimate trick to perfect photos which no one knows but I will teach you in 12 minutes, 9 of which I will be babbling” kind of videos useless, but it is great to see the sheer enjoyment of the craft that some people have. I find it contagious.

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Martin Castein has a very nice video about the 50mm focal length:

The 50mm has been practically glued to my camera for the past month, so this is very good timing from my perspective because a lot of my experience makes much more sense now. I figured out that I had to squat to photograph children, but now I will experiment with centering all portraits.

4 Likes

Many photography-related videos are vlogs, and sometimes it’s a bit like joining them outdoors for a walk. You can’t necessarily get the same from some text. Ultimately, most of them are entertainment first, education second. There are some exceptions, of course, like @s7habo’s channel, but I try not to view most of them as anything other than entertainment, even the gear reviews. You sometimes learn some things as a bonus, of course.

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Another great video on editing from Emily / micro43nerds:

Everything in there can be replicated in Darktable etc easily.

A channel I haven’t encountered before has a great video about Sebastiano Salgado, and how he worked for photos, exploring the subject to prepare for that perfect moment.

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Since I did not see them here:

The Crit House (especially the My 5 series)
Alec Soth

No gear or tutorials. Just artists talking about photographs.

I hadn’t expected much from this for some reason and hadn’t watched it when she put it up but it’s a really good summary of lots of timeless ways to use editing to draw out the best of a composition. Thanks for posting

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That 1st advice is really easy to give when you have AI masks that mask out your subject instantly and perfectly :smiley:

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I fully agree, but I find it quite easy to do in Darktable too. Especially if I condition on edge sensitivity, colors/brigthness, and maybe refine with a drawn mask. Yes, I know, multiple steps instead of one, but it is not a big deal.

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It’s obvious for many, I suppose, but was worth reiterating for me that it’s good to compose a photo not only thinking of it as the scene you can see in front of you but also as a good starting point for editing. So adding contrast, for instance, so that the photo shows less than you could actually see at the time.

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Recently found these great videos on composition by Gil Kreslavsky:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5ct2mFcDn_WXBdV1wthoqKw_BKigBoE6

I recognize that this is very specific advice, but it is the kind I need now. The one on 28mm was an eye opener for me.

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35mm(X100V) is a similar struggle…

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Just watching the one on shooting crowds after being at the demonstration in Paris. Great advice, clearly explained. Thanks for posting

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A bit of a pet peeve of mine it seems but I think he is over emphasizing the idea of isolating a subject. His examples of bad photos aren’t really bad because the surroundings are competing with the “subject” but because the relationships between all the things in the frame are weak. The relationships in the frame lack story and visual strength.

Just looking at his good examples this should be clear. Many of the good ones have even more stuff competing for interest with the main subject making the eye wander around. I looked at that rooster in the end for a split second before ignoring it and looking at the other stuff.

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Posted a few of his videos in another thread but watched a few more of Graeme William’s Photo Conversations now and I rate his commentary particularly on, at least to me, lesser known photographers.

https://www.youtube.com/@PhotoConversations/videos

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This interviewee makes a point about how he switched from isolating people in a crowd to building layers of people to create a story:

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Stephen Leslie does not make videos very often and only has a few thousand subscribers. But his videos are quite amusing and meandering through street photography via bizarre premises such as “THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO LLAMAS IN STREET PHOTOGRAPHY” which devolves into a struggle of identifying llamas in street photography vs alpacas in street photography. And also an extensive history of the build up to Garry Winogrand’s multiple llama photos.

6 Likes

I have been enjoying The Cole and John Photo Show recently.