- Ah, what's up, guys?
Sometimes, when you live in Canada,
like I do, as you guys know, it's
so cold outside, the first thing
that always gets, like, really, really numb, my feet.
If you hop on Amazon and you buy
a bunch of those, like, hand and feet warmers,
and then you're good to go for like, eight hours.
I almost forgot to mention, you gotta cover your face.
(upbeat music)
How ya doin'?
We're gonna go rob a bank.
(passerby laughs)
He thinks I'm kidding!
It'd be funny if, like, that guy
saw the news, like, at six o'clock,
and we actually robbed a bank.
He'd be like, "Oh, they told me they
"were gonna rob that bank!"
(branches crack)
I can't vlog with that on my face!
What's up, guys?
Welcome to Niagara Falls!
I figured I would come out, get
new Instagram photos, but I wanted
to teach you guys a really unique
way to stand out on the platform
that one of my friends has been doing recently.
(snow crunches)
- Well, hey guys, how's it going?
- [Peter] Oh, fancy seeing you here in the woods!
Commence Niagara Falls B-roll.
(funky music)
There's just this massive cloud of
water that just keeps destroying our gear.
(funky music)
This guy left his car outside on a really cold day,
since eight o'clock this morning,
and now it is no longer a vehicle, it is an ice cube.
Look at this!
(funky music)
- Since this morning.
- [Peter] This morning?
- Not even six hours, probably.
- [Peter] Oh my goodness, dude, it's solid!
Oh, what're you gonna do?
- I have no idea.
- [Peter] What're you gonna, you need a chainsaw, man!
I wish I could help you, but, I mean, I got nothin'.
I just can't, I can't stop filming it.
I've never seen anything like it.
(funky music)
One of the first photos I ever saw
from Alen was actually from Niagara
Falls in the winter, and I remember,
I was sitting in my bed scrolling,
and he was on the suggested user page,
and I was like, (gasps) what, where, how far is that?
I need that picture, so-- - So we're here
to almost recreate that picture, if we can.
We're gonna see.
I dunno, right now, it's kinda misty, but
we're out here, and we're gonna try it.
- [Peter] It looks amazing.
Tell everybody how long you've
been doing photography and Instagram
and how you got into this whole
crazy world of, like, social media.
- I'd say it began about seven
years ago, the photography, and then
the Instagram portion began about
four years ago, just traveling
around, sharing kinda the things I was seeing.
- Aren't you an architect?
You're not even a, like, photographer by trade, right?
- I'm a designer, urban designer.
I started my masters in architecture, but I dropped out.
You know why?
Because this is a lot better.
For the gram, I did it for the gram!
(both laugh)
- So Alen's gonna show you something
he's been doing that's super dope.
Would you call them, like, would
you call them like a little series,
like a little photo series for your stories?
- Yeah, curated Instagram series.
This is a way that you could tell
your story of what you shot that
day or what you experienced.
A lot of people just post one photo,
and they spend a week or two weeks in one place,
so this is a good way for your fans,
or your followers, to figure out
what it is you're shooting.
- For instance, I spent, like,
a full day in Houston, took a ton
of photos, but the only Houston
shot that actually made it onto my
vlog was of a McLaren, which was a dope picture,
but it said nothing about my trip to Houston,
so this is a great way to not, like,
jam up your grid with, like, a hundred
Niagara Falls, frozen, amazing photos,
but, like, pick five of the best ones,
and make, like, a little photo-journalistic,
like, series documenting that day
that, maybe, oh, we'll get into the brand stuff after,
documenting that day, stuff like that,
so commence Niagara Falls Frozen Icy B-Roll With Alen.
- Let's do this.
- Let's go.
(funky music)
My road mic, completely frozen, like,
absolutely, none of the buttons even work.
Backpack, completely frozen, so we're
tryin' to find, like, a nice little
quiet spot safe from the mist cloud of ice
to continue the vlog-torial, if you will.
This should work up here.
Whaddaya think?
- Yeah, that's cool.
- [Peter] I think this looks good.
- Yeah.
- Ah, the creepy back alley of Niagara Falls.
Yeah, good light, we're safe from the
elements, as safe as one can be.
I don't even know what I'm saying.
This is crazy, we were like, just inside,
havin' a coffee, surprise, came outside,
within two seconds, everything is iced over again.
This is, like, the hardest conditions
to vlog and make movies in, but
it makes good movies, that's for sure.
We made it.
- Yeah.
- [Peter] High five, yes.
- The phot series really began
when I started working with a couple
different brands, like Mercedes.
They would get me to document
my daily, I guess, activities,
so I would go out and shoot.
Whether or not it'd be film or video,
and then I'd come back, and I would
edit into a sequence of different videos and clips.
Basically, what happened that day, and you know what?
It made storytelling process a lot easier.
A lot of people forget that if
you wanna share a story with someone,
they have to have more than just
one still image to kind of base the story on.
This is how I was able to show people
exactly what was happening on
the day-to-day activities that I was shooting.
- And I love that, because there's
so many times, like, you have so
many good photos to post, or you
want to consecutively bring someone
through the process of a day, or
the process of a trip, or the
process of a shoot for a brand,
and it's hard to do that with one photo,
so having a little series that
you can kind of curate and edit
with text, which we're gonna talk about,
to put on Instagram stories is
a really unique way of using that
platform, or just kind of, like,
squeeze everything you can out of it,
and I love that he's doing that,
and, I mean, I'm the worst for Instagram
stories, like, the absolute worst.
I'll usually fall into the same
problem that most people fall into,
is, like, I use my Instagram stories
to like, update everybody about like,
hey, new post, swipe up, but what
most people do is swipe past, because
jut using it as another means of notification
to let them know that you posted
somewhere else seems kinda redundant.
- I'm trying to leverage the platform,
and unlike Pete over here-- - [Peter] Be nice!
- I'm not just telling people to swipe up,
it's more of, kinda-- - Look at this guy, this guy.
He's roastin' me on my own video!
What?
No, but he's right, he's right,
I'm like, my story game, considering
the people I hang out with, should
be considerably better, but we're all workin' on things!
We're all workin' on things, you're just leveraging it!
- Pete is a master of holding a camera on me.
Now I gotta cooperate and tell you
guys how to do what I do, right?
- I will make you look bad.
But you're leveraging the platform.
It's not meant for what you're doing.
- No, absolutely, I mean, Instagram
was created for people just to
share content, not really do anything
else other than that, and when
you, as a photographer, at least,
when I go out and I'm shooting stuff,
I wanna tell people what I was doing.
It's not just a matter of sharing photos,
it's getting them to feel like
they were a part of the story, and you know what?
It teaches them something along the journey.
It's that no photo you take is ever bad,
so you gotta go back, fish out all those photos,
and, you know, throw a nice series together.
I wanna see what you guys come up with.
I layer on different text on my photos.
It's just another addive that you
add on top of your photos, just
to pull people in, kind of direct
them in terms of the story, and
no one knows what the sequence is gonna be about
if you don't kind of direct them, so.
- Oh, we should explain that.
If you're someone who just likes Instagram
because it's fun to post photos, that's fine.
There's no pressure, that's what it's made for,
but if you're someone who wants
to turn it into a brand or use
it as a means to, like, express
your creativity so that you can
hopefully get business with that
creativity moving forward, this is for you.
- You gotta make some changes.
- Yeah, this is for you, so that's,
I should preface with that, 'cause
I know a lot of people out there
are like, "I don't, that's not fun.
"That ruins Instagram, that's not what I wanna do,"
and that's fine, but if you wanna take
this to like, a professional level,
like Alen, and work for brands and
make money based off what you're
putting on Instagram, these are great tips, so.
- It's great practice, too.
I mean, it doesn't hurt to try to
curate your content in a better fashion.
Another thing that Instagram recently
made up, in terms of their update,
they allowed you to archive your stories,
so I have these, like, cool sequences
that tell the viewer, or whatever,
whoever's viewing my profile,
exactly what I did on those specific days,
if I choose to archive it, so you could start there.
- You could name them, you just name them,
like, the location. - Yeah, you name the location,
and you throw on as many photos as you want,
and it stays there as long as your feed's alive.
- [Peter] That's smart, I like that.
- Pretty cool, yeah.
- That's a wrap for Niagara Falls!
We're headed back to the city now.
We're losing light.
It's four o'clock, and that means
we have, like, the sun's here,
we have, like, 40 minutes of light left,
so we can get back to Toronto,
get a coffee, get in the truck,
back home to edit these awesome
Instagram story journalistic series photo,
I don't even know, what do we call these?
Anyways, let's go.
You would have skates in your trunk.
Look at this bag, dude.
Oh my goodness.
Everything is just iced.
(funky music)
The bottom line for today is you're
gonna use Instagram not the way
Instagram intended you to use it,
but leverage that creativity,
like things like photo series that
Alen, here, is doing, and links for everything below.
If you guys don't follow Alen, I've left his links below.
You can also follow those links over
to the Instagram stories that we shot today,
little photo series from Niagara
and Toronto, or whatever, you'll
find 'em on my stories, his stories, everyone's stories.
It gets confusing, this web of social media,
but, either way, thank you to this guy
for inspiring me, and hopefully you guys too.
Gotta drive all the way home.
Gotta drive the whole way home.
I totally forgot.
I still have, like, an hour to go.
This day ends for you, now, I gotta
get an hour, and it's like, the
worst weather outside right now.
Thanks for everything, great seeing you.
Thanks for the tips.
I'll see you on the Interwebs.
- Interwebs!
- See you in the DMs.
♪ We could build a dream ♪
♪ Start of somethin' new ♪
♪ Let the old be dead ♪
♪ Let the shadows leave my head ♪
♪ When the world is on your shoulders ♪
♪ And you feel like fallin' over ♪
♪ Just come a little closer ♪
♪ I'll be there for you ♪