(door creaking)
Hi.
The other day, I found this in my cupboard at home,
my old stills camera.
Which is prompting me to tell you a story.
And this camera isn't even a video camera.
It's a stills camera, my old Nikon D300.
But with that camera, I took this photo.
And this photo is key to the story
as to how I got started into making videos for YouTube.
But to tell that story, I need to go on the Victoria line.
("Mills n Hills" by Isaintjames)
And that story starts here
by this roundel outside Walthamstow Central tube station
at the top of the Victoria line
which is where I first recorded "Secrets of the Underground"
starting with the Victoria line for the Londonist channel.
The next station is Hampstead.
So I'm outside Hampstead tube station
which is where I took this photo.
Which I still have to this day.
Now this is because during 2006 to 2009,
I'd lived and worked in the USA.
During that time, I'd spent some of my time
as a wedding photographer
where I learned to take good photos.
I got a good camera, I learned how to frame a shot
and have an eye for what makes a good image.
So when I came back here in 2010 and 2011,
I spent a lot of my time going around the tube network
taking nice photos like this one.
And then at the end of 2011,
("Mills n Hills" by Isaintjames)
I got reading on a London website called Londonist
and I noticed that they announced a competition,
a photo competition called Sense in the City
well, I took this photo, which I'd taken at Hampstead,
where the judging panel was here
at the London Transport Museum.
And I know that because I've still got the email
from the managing director of Londonist at the time
that says, "I do hope you can come to the event
"at the museum on the 20th of January."
And my photo was displayed here up on the wall.
It didn't win, I'd love to find the photo that did win.
But more importantly, is what it did do,
is that I met Lindsey, the managing director of Londonist.
So I then had a contact, an in at Londonist.
(upbeat music)
Now at the beginning of 2013,
I found myself watching more and more YouTube.
And I remember thinking,
I wish there was more stuff about The Tube
and about The Underground online.
Why has no one made this?
And then I thought, well then,
maybe I should be the person to make this content.
And to make that content, I thought it needs to be published
and go on a platform about London.
So, hence I thought of Londonist
and Londonist had a YouTube channel
with not that many videos.
So I emailed Lindsey basically saying,
employ me, give me a job.
Will you pay me if I make you a series of videos
about The London Underground and put it on your channel?
Except they said no.
(upbeat music)
But not wanting to take no for an answer,
I then went back to them a few weeks later and said,
well what if I just made the video anyway
and gave it to you for free
and see if it was popular or not?
And so I went ahead and made the video anyway
with my old Sony Z5 video camera.
My friend Steven and I came out,
started by that roundel there,
shot it all on the Victoria line,
took it home, edited it, uploaded it to Londonist,
said, there you go, put that on your YouTube,
see what happens.
I'm sorry to interrupt the story,
just that I came home and I found one, my box of DV tapes
and two, my original Sony Z5 video camera.
And amongst the tapes,
I've got oh, Victoria line, Circle line,
District line and the Northern line.
That was a lot quicker than I expected (laughs).
That's a very young looking Geoff.
Wow, okay. Back to the story.
(upbeat music)
So the Londonist offices are at,
or rather, were at Old Street.
I'm just gonna go around the corner to Willow Street
to where they used to be located.
Because after a week,
I noticed that "Secrets of the Victoria Line"
had got 50,000 views.
And I didn't know if there was any good or not.
But I got an email, might have been a call
from a Lindsey saying, can you come in for a meeting?
That video's done rather well.
(upbeat music)
So I came here, Willow House, near Old Street.
Londonist, these were the offices, they're not here anymore.
They've moved out.
Although it still says on the bell push up there
that they're based here, but they're not.
And I came here and I had a meeting with Lindsey and Matt,
Matt from London, they were the editors then of Londonist
and they went, we think we've got a hit on our hands here
with that video.
Do you have fancy doing another one? And I said, yes.
Fortuitously during this time, my old friend James,
that used to work with the BBC.
He's a cameraman, got in touch and went,
I'd like to help you make the next one.
So we went out and made "Secrets of the Northern Line".
That too, was a big instant hit,
thousands and thousands of views.
So Londonist at that point said, we want more.
We want the whole series.
And I made over the next 18 months
the rest of the series, doing all the lines.
And after that, I just carried on making videos
for Londonist and pretty much became a Londonist employee.
Forgot my bag.
The next station is Tottenham Court Road.
And at the end of 2014, "Secrets of The Underground"
was doing so well that Londonist and myself
brought out a DVD of it which you can't get anymore.
It's really hard to find.
I saw ones on eBay for like hundreds of pounds, ridiculous.
There is also by the way,
the Australian version on DVD only.
like a rare cover version, hard to find.
Anyway, around this time we noticed
that the Londonist subscriber count was doing quite well.
So we kept on uploading "Secrets of The Underground" videos
to the Londonist channel.
Soon, we got to 10,000 subscribers.
Now, at the time, I didn't realise
that that was such a big deal,
but these guys here, in that building is Google,
invited us Londonist in to be like,
hey, now you're at 10,000 subs,
you get to use the YouTube space.
YouTube space used to be in here at Tottenham Court Road,
not the current one where they moved to at Kings Cross.
And when that happened, we spent a day at Google,
oh we also made the chocolate tube map video here.
We hung out in Google in the space.
And that made me think,
well, how many people are on my YouTube channel?
And I looked, and it turned out to be
three and a half approaching 4,000.
And I'm thinking, hang on a second.
That's just through sporadic upload since 2009.
By the way, go back, watch the iPhone video,
the very first video I put on my channel back in 2009.
But that made me think, well,
if all we've done is upload regular videos to Londonist
and got to 10,000,
what if I tried with more regular uploads on my channel?
Come back to Brixton.
Brockwell Park, start in Brixton,
might as well end in Brixton for the wrap up.
And so that's what I've been doing,
ever since I came back from visiting every station
in the summer of 2017,
I've been doing regular uploads to my channel.
Usually weekly.
I've been watching those numbers go up
and it's terribly exciting and humbling
to have passed a quarter of a million mark recently,
in terms of subscribers.
Thank you if you're one of those.
And thank you if you're a viewer.
(lively music)
And thank you to all the people I've met along the way
and had fun with, been in my videos,
I've done collaborations with, it's been a lot of fun,
but in particular, huge, special, big thank you
to all those hardworking people that I've met
that work on the railway and clearly love their jobs.
And it's an honour and a pleasure to come along.
Especially if you allow me to stick my camera in your face
to showcase what you do and tell your story on the railway.
And that is how one photo
can lead to a whole bunch of stories and videos
on this YouTube channel.
I do worry some days that YouTube won't be around forever.
We'll see.
Although while it is,
I will continue to make videos and tell stories.
And that is the key word,
and is a perfect quote that I'll leave you with
from the brilliant Canadian author and poet Margaret Atwood,
who once simply said,
"In the end, we'll all become stories."
Thank you for watching mine.