My YouTube Journey: Choosing Art and Authenticity Over Analytics

If you follow my YouTube channel you may have seen that I have decided to make some big changes there, switching from a channel that is entirely focused on videos about photography to something much more broad covering all my interests. I’ve addressed that briefly on the channel but I thought this would be a good space to go into more details for anyone who might be interested.

Why branch out?

Obviously the first question is, why? And I guess the most brief and honest answer is just that I lost interest in making videos about photography.

I started the channel in 2021 when I was really interested in expanding my photography hobby. I was living with my parents in a rural area, and we were really still in “COVID times”, which meant there were limited things to do in my spare time. With those combined, it made sense to make the types of videos that I did, a combination of landscape photography and educational photography content, which often took a lot of research and planning.

At the time I was also committed to making one video a week, and just barely had space in my schedule to keep up with that in addition to my full time job and other obligations of life.

Now, things are a bit different. The COVID crisis is over and I live in the city where there are tons of things to do. At some point I stopped trying to make a video every week, in order to focus on being creative in my videos, but found that most of my video ideas in the photography-education space didn’t really lend themselves to the level of creativity I wanted to put forth. Plus, those videos often require considerable research and planning, taking hours my time without particularly being a creative outlet.

Perhaps some people maintain their excitement about one thing forever, but I certainly don’t. Not to say I necessarily abandon my hobbies, but my I have a diverse range of interests and love trying new things, so what I’m most passionate about is often something I’ve newly discovered and am trying to learn and master. So in the time left by stepping away from my photography-education videos I've found new interests outside of photography that I'm excited about and would love to share.

You’ve likely noticed that there haven’t been a lot of videos on my channel for the past couple years, and that’s why. I mentioned previously that I haven't always had time to release a weekly video, but that's not the full story. To be honest I was unmotivated to produce content because while I wanted to make videos, but I didn’t feel like making videos that fit within the topic of the channel.

Are you still doing photography?

Of course! I’ve been taking photos (albeit not always very good ones) for almost my entire life, and I don’t anticipate ever stopping. Most of my photos recently have been of my other interests, like my plants or coffees I’ve made.  A few months ago I photographed a friend’s wedding, which was a first for me, and of course there are hundreds of pictures of my cat. I’ve also made a few family videos just for fun, and a couple things for my TikTok.

The real difference is that the photos and videos I’ve taken have been about my other interests, rather than about themselves, that is, I’ve been focused on doing photography rather than talking about doing photography.

And that is the change I’m making to my channel. I want to focus on actually practicing creativity in photos and videos, not just talking about it, because that’s what I really enjoy.

This sounds a bit selfish, shouldn’t you serve the audience more to be successful?

Yep. But, it’s my channel. Sorry.

Sarcasm aside, yes, I fully recognize that this is not the most successful strategy to take on YouTube and that there are a lot of subscribers who may not be interested in my new content and may unsubscribe. I considered making a new channel for other topics, to keep my current channel photography focused in other to better cater to those subscribers, but that comes with a few inconveniences for me: having to switch accounts to post content and having to build a new following from scratch.

If I look at my YouTube analytics, I can see that videos which brought the most subscribers were my very specific how-to videos, such as a video where I walk through every single button on the Nikon Z6ii and explain what it does. Therefore, if I were to aim for YouTube success, the numbers say I should lean into making those types of videos as often as possible. Obviously it’s a risk, but if I cancelled my other plans, stayed home a lot more, and made camera specific how-to videos once or twice a week it’s possible I could develop a large following and start to actually make some money from YouTube.

There are, though, two reasons why that doesn’t entice me.

First of all, I really don’t need fame and financial success on YouTube. I’d love to grow my audience and feel like there are people appreciating my work, and I’d love a bit of income to support my hobbies, but I don’t need either of those things.

In terms of fame, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about getting validation from viewers that my videos were good. I love to see someone has liked or commented “great video.” But YouTube isn’t my sole source of validation in life, either. That would be pretty sad if it was. Thanks in part to a lot of therapy, I have a lot of self confidence and am fine without that validation. Beyond that, there are a lot of people in my life who I know will support me and my interests, so I don’t need that from strangers on the internet. In fact, it means a lot more to me if someone I’m close to tells me they enjoyed the video than if a hundred people click the like button. The people close to me, too, are mostly not photographers, and while they’ve been very supportive, the specific videos that have performed really well understandably don’t interest them.

In terms of financial success, again, it would be great if YouTube helped to pay for my hobbies. That was part of the reason I started the channel, because for years photography had been purely a cost, so I figured that could be an opportunity to get a little back from it. At the moment I haven’t reached the watch hour threshold to monetize the channel, and if I do reach that I won’t start to make any significant amount of money until I have a lot more subscribers. While I’ve had the channel I’ve bought a lot of new camera gear too, some of which I’d probably have bought for myself anyway and some of which is for the channel, but to total all of it the channel is probably five or six thousand dollars in the hole. So sure, if it started to pay for itself that would be amazing, I think everyone probably envies the influencers who seem to make a living just by having fun. But, again, do I actually need that? Just a couple years before starting on YouTube I started my career as a software developer, and I think most people would agree that I'm quite successful in that. I have a stable job with a six-figure salary, no dependents, and live in an area with a relatively low cost of living. So I’m not relying on YouTube to become my career, and I can still afford to pay for my hobbies on my own.

The second reason I don't want to aim for YouTube success by making more of those videos that have been the most successful is that those weren’t typically the videos that I enjoyed making. In fact, perhaps ironically, some of them were videos I made when I didn’t have any “better” ideas; when I was feeling uninspired. That video I mentioned, where I walk through the Z6ii’s buttons, has performed very well, but it really wasn’t creative or fun to make, in fact, it was quite boring to make. So if I wanted to follow the conventional wisdom for YouTube success, I’d need to focus on making the content that I was never really that interested in making in the first place. Certainly I could do that, but that would make my YouTube channel work rather than a creative outlet.

Perhaps, then, this is a crossroads for my channel. Is it a hobby or a career?  I’ve chosen hobby. I have no need to leave the stability of my full-time job which I enjoy and am successful at, and no desire to take free time from my interests, relaxation, or girlfriend in order to make videos that feel like a chore to produce. I have a career that I enjoy, I'm not seeking another one with more potential downsides.

So why not start a new channel?

I’ve put a lot of thought into this.

For me, keeping the same channel means likely losing some subscribers who aren't interested in the new content, while starting a new channel means creating a new account and starting fresh at 0 subscribers, and subscribers of each of those might not necessarily see my other content which could be of interest to them.

For viewers, keeping the same channel means they could be bothered by videos in their feed that might not interest them, and might want to unsubscribe as a result, while starting a new channel would be anyone who was interested would need to go subscribe again and for those who weren't the current channel would just sit there dormant like it is now, rarely being posted to.

What it really came down to is this: the channel in its current form is essentially dead. I’m posting to it very occasionally and I have no real intentions to go back to making the very niche content that was more successful unless at some point it sounds fun to me. So I’m not providing any value to those subscribers who want that content, and without me actively growing that channel to get monetization and ad views, they’re not providing any value to me either.

If I drop a video about my houseplants and a lot of people unsubscribe, that’s kind of fine. My hope is that some of those people will also be interested in houseplants, or coffee, or the cinematic and artistic videos I want to make about those things, and will enjoy sticking around, which could provide some small advantage over starting fresh. But if not it’s easy for people to unsubscribe and I won’t be offended, so neither of us are really out anything.

What will new videos be about?

Well, there’s a good chance of more photography related content, since I’m going to keep taking photos and shooting videos. Beyond that, as I hinted above, some definite topics are houseplants and coffees, as well as product reviews beyond just photography. I enjoy buying new things as I build my life and love something that has great design or helps create a certain lifestyle, so I want to share that.

I’m not sure what else I might post since I’m going to post whatever I’m excited about, but I know that will create much more authentic videos, because it’s a lot easier for me to naturally engage with a topic I’m currently passionate about.

As far as the style, I want to try to make the videos really artistic whenever I can, because that’s what I enjoy about making videos, and also something I love when I’m watching videos. For example, coming soon is a video about an espresso maker I got recently, and I don’t plan on that being a dry talking-head review, especially since I’m a beginner to making espresso. Instead I’m in the process of creating cinematic shots of the unboxing and espresso brewing experience, mixed in with some of my thoughts, to create something much more focused on art and lifestyle than necessarily a particular product.

The best example I can think of from channels I follow would be Becki and Chris, who have always been people I love to watch and an inspiration to me. Their videos include a lot of photography and videography education, but they also include travel, DIY, and home improvement. They’re often very artistic, extremely high quality, and follow the journey of their life and passions.

Hopefully that answers your questions. This is an experiment, but hopefully it will be satisfactory for everyone. At the end of the day, my channel, like this blog, is a creative outlet for me rather than a career path, and sometimes that means decisions that are right for me which might not necessarily be an optimal channel growth strategy.

My new videos are going to focus on being artistic and genuine, showing some of my adventures in life in a way that hopefully will allow anyone to enjoy the atmosphere of them regardless of whether you share that hobby, appealing to a broader audience than those very specific videos.