it's time for another video and... I forgot to turn off the A/C... it's time for
another video and in this video I kind of want to talk about Taiwan I want to
talk about the photos from Taiwan and I really really didn't want to do another
sit-down talking video but I also really feel like I kind of need to process what
happened in Taiwan and kind of process my feelings and my feelings about not
vlogging and what that's meant and my growth is a photographer I kind of just
need my therapist and if you guys have been with this channel for a long time
you've always been my therapist so bear with me as I talk about my photos from
Taipei and just kind of the differences that I've been feeling since I stopped
flogging because it's been so weird and to be honest at the start it was really
hard it was like vlogging was such a big part of my life that it was it was
emotional to give it up it was like deciding to change careers almost it was
just a huge part of my life and it's been taking me some time to process it
and try to figure out what life is like after the vlog and Taiwan was really the
first time that I went out and shot where I wasn't vlogging daily and at
first it was really overwhelming it was like I just felt this loss of a purpose
I just didn't feel like I had any purpose and it was really strange I
think it all comes down to the fact that I used to run around the world like
crazy shooting from dawn until dusk trying to you know fulfill contracts or
on assignments or doing work for magazines or newspapers and stuff like
that I really needed to make photos to survive so I used to go out and shoot
with a purpose to make money to make a living to be able to put food on my
plate and then I started vlogging and when I started vlogging there was a
purpose again it was teaching it was instructing it was showing you guys the
world it was inspiring there was a purpose to my photos and yes sometimes I
was on assignments when I was vlogging and I was you know doing magazine
articles when I was vlogging and stuff like that but during this past kind of
year there was this transition that happened that I didn't really
where I went from you know working as a photographer to being a youtuber and I
didn't realize this thing was happening and there is a big difference between
the two the first being your main goal as a
photographer is making photos to sell your main goal is a youtuber is making
photos to show people on YouTube and I didn't even realize I'd gone through
this transition until I stop vlogging because there I was in Taiwan without a
purpose without a reason for taking the pictures and it I just felt so lost the
first day I went out to shoot pictures and I was just like what's my purpose
with these images what is my goal with these images what do I want to make what
do I want to do with my life and then by about day two I kind of came to this
realization then I can do whatever I want and I felt this like pressure just
pop off my shoulders because I no longer had to do anything for anybody but
myself and I know that sounds super selfish but it was really liberating I
could literally for the first time in my life go out and take pictures just
because I wanted to go out and take pictures
I started travel photography because I was travel writing and the editors were
like Brendan we need better photos from you in order to publish these articles
so I picked up photography and then the career evolved from there so I started
taking pictures as a tourist and you know in like high school and junior high
and stuff like that but I started taking travel photography seriously when I
started doing it as a career so I never had this time in my life where I was
just going up to take pictures for fun and I know that sounds crazy and weird
but Taiwan was my first time to do that and it was it was great and I want to
share with you guys the images I took in Taiwan because on the episode where I
talked about selling photos for a magazine or newspaper I said that you
should have like a like a mini portfolio of 10 to maybe 15 images that you can
send to an editor in hopes of selling a story and so I thought it would be cool
for me to put together 10 to 15 images and show them to you guys to kind of
give you an idea of what that portfolio or that mini portfolio from a destiny
you look like so I'm gonna grab my computer I'm gonna flip it and I'm gonna
do this I'm gonna show you guys the images because I'm quite happy with them
so the first image is the first image I took on the whole trip it's just kind of
like a almost a bit of a hero image it's just something that a magazine could
stick on their front page of an article and say like this is Taiwan it's very
Taipei is a simple photo it's just a monument framed by the gate but it is
something that works and then let's jump to the next one the next one is this
pano that I actually really love and the Panos funny because I think I would have
never taken this image if I was vlogging the only way I would have taken this
image if I was vlogging was if I was doing a video about how to do Panos I
don't usually do a whole lot of Panos and this was maybe the one moment of
that morning where the light was decent you can see
there's like a purple tinge from the sunrise and I think that if I was
vlogging I would have been racing to try to capture something really incredible a
really epic during that light but I didn't feel as much stress to make the
image so I was like you know what let's try to do something different and see if
it works and I do think it works from a magazine standpoint in general crops
that are odd are a pain for a publisher because they usually have their general
outlines that they work with and if one of those general outlines doesn't
include a panel it's basically useless to them but I would include an image
like this every now and then because some magazines do like to use Panos
across two pages as like a header or a footer or something like that so I might
throw in a panel every now and then just for fun next image is this one I never
ever would have gotten this photo if I was vlogging because the way I usually
vlog is I film in the morning at sunrise I shoot pictures at sunrise then I walk
around in the middle of the day and I shoot b roll and film the day rarely do
I ever just have my camera slung around my neck to take photos and snapshots
when I'm walking around but in Taiwan I was like shooting b-roll at sunrise
taking pictures and then in the middle of the day every now and then I just
stick the vlogging camera away and it would just pull out my you know stills
camera take pictures and this was one of those
moments one of those times that I did that I never used to do this when I was
logging and I really loved the photo it's it's a pretty basic photo but it
works it's got that yellow taxi it's got the arrow pointing down the road this is
basically the camera shop Street which is another thing I love about this image
but it just works and like I said never would have got that photo if I was
blogging also would have never got this photo if I was blogging because when I'm
when I was vlogging I was almost too focused on getting one really really
good image whereas when I was out shooting this time I didn't have that
pressure so I was really interested in also working with some details and
trying to get some more mediocre images and it's not it is a mediocre image it's
not a great image but it's the type of image that a magazine would love and in
general that big epic hero image yeah it sells but the images that I sell the
most are usually just average normal looking images something like this again
would have never shot this image maybe not only when I was blogging but
over the past couple years I love to eat I eat a lot of food I never photograph
the food it's not something that vlogging pulled me away from it's just I
don't know I feel stupid taking pictures of food but foods such an important part
of the culture and of travel in general so I really wanted on this trip to
photograph the food here there I took four or five pictures of food from this
trip that I really liked this one's from the Taiwanese tea ceremony that we had
it was phenomenal and I'm glad I got a photo of it because it's a good memory
next image from that street this is an image I kind of want to talk about super
fast because I think it's important because it's editorial but it also looks
like a made photo and I think that's a huge thing and selling work to travel
magazines or newspapers is finding this balance between editorial and creative
so yes this is a very editorial image it's an image of the streets but just by
adding a little bit of motion and a slow shutter to it it makes it a made photo
and those type of images really really sell work
sell well in editorial terrible sunrise on Elephant Mountain absolutely got
skunked that morning still managed to walk away with an image
that I could send to an editor I think no matter what you always need a
cityscape image if you're gonna sell an article to a magazine even if it's not
great but I do like this image because even though we got terrible light I feel
like I managed to do something a little bit different I've seen hundreds of
images from up here but they're all kind of just the skyline
I hadn't seen something that had this foreground of the walking paths and
stuff like that so so I like that it's a little bit different and it's definitely
something I would include in my in my mini portfolio photo of trains trains
always do well everybody loves trains you've seen Joe alumns recent video
about trains fantastic this is a train leaving this town and it's a very
snapshot image but I love all the people in the front of the Train with their
cameras up and just enjoying that moment and it's a very very travel image and
again it's got that editorial feel to it that really does well and selling for
magazines boom waterfall and it's like out of
nowhere all these photos that are kind of editorial style and then they've got
a waterfall photo but the light was just too good on this image not to put in
this portfolio it wasn't great light but the way it was backlit just made it work
and I think even if you're selling an article about Taipei about a city it's
really cool to include a nature image from nearby in case the editor you know
just wants to include a bit of nature or a day trip or like a little mini story
attached to it or better yet let's say they hate the story about Taipei they're
like it's not something we're interested in but they're they see this image and
they go but you do have that cool waterfall photo do you have something
about the nature and type a it kind of opens that door so street photo this is
my favorite photo from our first day I was vlogging when I shot that image and
I loved it I don't know what it is about it I think it's just this look on his
face and then the lights beautiful so travel when you're shooting travel you
need to include people in your photos you might remember my first image from
this take you see the gate and you see the monument but you don't realize how
big they are and I didn't realize how big they were when I was doing
research before taipei i was like looks kind of cool there I got there and I was
blown away by how massive it was so including a person shows that scale it
shows the viewer how big a place is and it also kind of gives that feeling to
the viewer of the photos to think I want to go there I want to be that person in
that photo this is probably the best light I got the whole trip and what I
want to talk about with this image is kind of framing there's a bunch of dead
space at the top of the image that's the type of image that they could use as a
cover because magazines they always put the magazine name at the very top of the
cover and so you need some dead space up at the top that they can play with to
put their you know magazine name up there so I always try to include at
least one usually two or three images that they could potentially use as
covers into my mini portfolio cool photo I don't know if I have anything to say
about it other than I like it it's a very simple photo but it's like that
architecture that you just need to include into a magazine this might be my
favorite image from the whole trip it's a street photo it's cool and I think it
is because of the rule of odds the rule of threes you've got these three people
in the front of the frame the girl who's like texting or something like that
the mom I assume who's taking a picture and then the guy on the left maybe the
dad who's just looking so bored and then you've got this beautiful street scene
with the lanterns very editorial I'm happy with the images from Taiwan to be
honest it was three days and I think I kept a hundred and ten images from three
days when I was vlogging the goal was kind of to shoot one image I loved every
single day on this trip I probably have 14 to 20 images I love I have probably
30 to 40 images that I are willing to share I'm willing to share and then
there's that hundred hundred and ten images that have kept so it was a really
productive trip and it's funny because when I was in the field in Taipei
I kept thinking I'm not getting any shots I'm not getting any shot but the
thing was I had the camera in my hand so much more taking so many more pictures
than I normally do that it didn't realize how many good photos I was
making I'm actually getting forward to things now I feel
like I'm starting to find a groove in this lack of vlogging and speaking of
the videos I guess this is gonna be the last sit-down talk for a while I don't
want to be doing talking videos like this but I feel like I needed kind of
some therapy or to talk about the changes and to talk about these images
from Taiwan moving forward there's a blog a vlog from botanas the trip to
botanas which is this beautiful island in the north of the Philippines which is
like a paradise for landscape photographers in a big video about
landscape photography in botanas I've got some quick little teaching videos
I've got trips to Cebu to do waterfall chasing I've got the whole - the
chocolate mountains coming up I've got Singapore and Norway there's
just so much fun stuff coming up I should also mention that I have a blog
post from this shoot in Taiwan up on my website that shows you the locations I
went and got these photos so you guys gonna go check them out if you want
about the blog as I'm getting off-topic about the blog every single time I do a
video over on my website brendan's adventures.com I also do a blog post
about it where you can see the photos so if you're interested in like scrolling
through them or looking at them a little bit longer you can do that there so yeah
that's it lots of fun stuff coming up on the channel and I guess I'll see you
guys on the next video thanks for bearing with me as I sit down and just
chat I'll see you next time peace