I was almost YouTube famous!
I had this brilliant idea that I could make videos while I do photography. This way I could become YouTube and Instagram famous at the same time! But better yet, I saw it as a way for people to explore Taiwan with me and let them in on my process of taking photos.
In the end it didn't really work out for reasons I'll get into, but my first video was of this place. It's an apartment complex with a bridge that had been dying to shoot.
The photos turned out really well, and the video was a hit too! I shared it on a Taiwanese curation site and got like over 20,000 views. I was onto something.
The video was decent, but I had a bit of a time problem. I would spend about 20 minutes editing each photo (each video had about 10-20 photos). Then I needed to edit the video which took FOREVER. I had a slow computer that kept on crashing, but I pressed on.
My 2nd video was decent, not as exciting but still a fun and featured places like Tutor ABC Rooftop and Immortal Rock Trail.
Then my wide-angle lens broke. I was pissed. Regardless I made the 3rd video but in kind of a lazy way, because without my wide-angle lens the whole POV experience wasn't the same.
In the past this is where I'd give up. I had three main issues... three strikes —time to move on.
I kept making videos, but they were getting shorter as I was getting lazier and lazier. I was so pissed that my lens broke and that these videos needed so much time to make.
Then the negative thoughts crept in and just overwhelmed me.
"You're not making money on these videos anyway."
"You're not that interesting."
"They have no stories or characters."
"Your graphics and design skills suck."
"You sound autistic."
I ended up making 11 videos before quitting. I started to have scratch disk and major performance issues with my computer. My girlfriend tried to help out by digging out her old computer that I could use, but that one didn't work either.
So that was it –the end of my POV photography videos.
The concept and visuals were good, but a series of bad luck led to self-doubt, which led to excuses to be lazy, which led quitting. Should I have kept going? I'm not so sure.
Looking back on the videos now I can see that they're pretty bad. I was as charismatic and as a chair, but the photos I shot for the videos were some of my best work yet. So something good definitely came out of it.
📍 Address: No. 94, Fuguo Road, Shilin District, Taipei City, 111.