Ever since the unexpected growth of this blog, and subsequently the adventures on my YouTube channel, I have somehow gathered quite a large following online, and I am constantly aware of that. Having an audience definitely has changed my way of shooting. In order to grow my YouTube channel, or get viewers to revisit my blog, I do need to consider making images that can resonate or get the approval of the audience I am interacting with through my platforms. If I were to just entirely shoot for myself and not care about what anyone else thinks, it isn't difficult to predict that I will lose subscribers and probably you won't want to visit this blog anymore. I can't shoot for my audience all the time, that would eat me up alive as I do have things that I want to do. Therefore, the trick is to find the balance, a fine line between shooting to keep the audience happy and shooting entirely for my own soul.
I am not sure what I have done right or whether I deserve such amazing audience. For that, I am incredibly grateful for all the beautiful people that do come and visit this blog, or come watch my videos on the YouTube channel. I do spend quite a lot of effort in shooting fresh, new photographs week after week, outside of my paid assignments and on top of that I do have to spend more time and energy in making YouTube or blog content. I am not complaining about the tasks, it has become a part of my life, and I have chosen the life of a photographer blogger and content creator, on top of being a full time photographer by profession.
Having an audience brings a lot of benefits to my growth as a photographer. It keeps me in check about anything that I write or talk about, and I am fully responsible for the images that I share. I get constant feedback about my quality of work or the content that I am sharing. I know that it is not healthy to seek validation or let others judge your work, but to push your own boundaries and limits, you do need others to give you constructive feedback. Having consistent measuring stick, or a reminder to keep sticking to strict shooting discipline helps myself to go the extra mile, knowing that my work will be seen by hundreds or thousands of people, whenever my new blog entry goes up, or my video got published online.
I am super fortunate to have gained a good, strong following online, with more than 15 million views on YouTube and 27 Million views on this blog. These are not small numbers, but they are nothing compared to much larger sites like Petapixel, or any celebrity YouTube photographers who have millions of views per video. Being obsessed with numbers is not helping my growth as a photographer, I should not be looking at them too much, but having milestones to commemorate how far I have come is also a powerful motivation for me to push further. I have to remind myself that these platforms, whether it is my blog or YouTube channel can only work if people actually come and visit. There is no Robin Wong, without the audience. Therefore, thank you, whoever you are, for reading this, or watching any of my videos, I appreciate that truly.
During the pandemic and series of lockdowns, my photography business took a huge hit, well, to be entirely honest, I was earning almost nothing for almost two years. I derived my photographic income from on location shoots, and live events. Since events and anything involving human touch or interactions cannot be allowed in public, my job calendar was painfully empty from 2020-2022. How did I survive? Thankfully my YouTube channel had started to grow before the pandemic hit, and the sold income from my content published on YouTube helped me through these dark times.
Now that the pandemic is behind us, I have learned a very valuable lesson - never to put all the eggs in one basket. Considering that my YouTube channel is bringing in a significant chunk of income, I continue pursuing it, alongside my recovering photography business. Yes I am getting more paid shoots now, more than ever before, but I am not neglecting my YouTube either. I continue to create new content week after week, and I do my weekly live streams too. I have an audience. I must embrace that, and continue to engage with them.
My audience has become an integral part of my life. The income from YouTube was not 100% from YouTube, I also had direct contributions and donations from the audience. Without the generosity and support from my kind audience, I would not be here today. I probably would have given up on being a photographer by profession and choose to work on a desk job.
I know very well what my audience wants, and I work very hard to feed them their desired content. People come to my site for Micro Four Thirds content, with Olympus and OM System gear more specifically. They want me to say positive things about Micro Four Thirds and review new or existing cameras and lenses. Some popular contents also include tips and tricks on using Micro Four Thirds, about optimizing sharpness, dynamic range and high ISO shooting.
When I stray away and talk about the things that I want to talk about, the topics that matter more in photography, such as lighting tips, composition technique, storytelling, doing a mini-project, printing or how to see as a photographer - all these contents would get pathetic views. To me, what matters more in my photographs are decisive moment, impactful message, or a powerful emotion that the image can convey. I always, aways talk about not obsessing with technical perfection, and how they won't improve your photography. Learn about how to do a photo-essay, learn about how to improve your lighting execution, or creative framing. Learn to include strong subject content - an idea, or good message in your photography, then you will see your photography go somewhere.
Even my photography style and choice of subjects have changed. If I were to shoot for myself, I can tolerate a little imperfection. Composition can be a little off balance, and the lighting does not have to be perfect. However, when you shoot for an audience, your images will be judged, so I have to take that into consideration - there are a few rules to follow. I love doing insect macro but somehow my macro content on YouTube does not get a lot of views, so I do it less. I love shooting streets with no people in it, just as much as I enjoy shooting portraits of strangers on the streets. People love seeing my portraits, so that has changed my way of doing street shooting - I still love shooting people, but I do it more. Normally I'd shoot 2-3 people and I'd be happy, but to create a video that people would enjoy, I'd find maybe 10 or more strangers to shoot. Having audience in consideration made me do things very differently.
I admit that the ratio of content I made for audience vs the content I made for myself, is more like 5 to 1. I am not kidding myself, the work I need to do to maintain the channel growth is not small. It would be foolish to just say and do what I want, while at the same time losing the interest of my hard-earned audience. I recognized the importance of having an audience, which I have directly monetized through YouTube ads, that I have come to depend on.
What is my solution for not being drowned in the process of making more content for my audience? I shoot for myself, but I don't share these images. I don't have to share everything to my audience. I write more on this blog, more personal sharing, like this particular entry. It gains nothing, it won't bring in the money, I won't get new following, but those who have followed me for a while would appreciate my sharing. I need to do these things to keep myself in balance, and to prevent myself from burning out.
Having an audience is a huge blessing. I would not have wished for anything to turn out differently in my life. However, I do have to continuously find a balance between doing things for myself, and not to fully saturate my site or channel with contents that only please the algorithm. I have to stay true to myself, and this is still work in progress.
Please support me & keep this site going:
Well, I can't speak for anyone else, but I think many people who follow you would agree with my opinion. As a longtime reader of this blog, and having watched pretty much your entire YouTube channel from the first days, I can say this: you, Robin Wong, are in a different league when it comes to photography content online. Like few others, you are always absolutely sincere and you try to not be petty in your criticisms, while always pointing out gear flaws (even when you were an official brand ambassador). Your disgust of technical obsession, pixel peeping and brick wall shooting, paired with a true passion for photography make all the content you publish, either here or in video form, FEEL different, more humane and empathetic in a way, refreshing in the "sea of Northrups" that is the online photo community. I think the only other person like you online is Emily @microfournerds, who I also love.
ReplyDeleteAs a gearhead myself, who enjoys both photography as a hobby and camera gear for its own sake, I get the urge most people have to obsess over tech and sensors. But your approach is so more laid back and focused on the process, you made me try new systems and look beyond my M43 bias (even though it still by far my darling favourite format 😅). I watch and read all your videos and posts, about M43 and Nikon and old cameras, and insect macro, and really hope you can feel free to do it all more your way in the future.
Yes, we m43 users would love to keep getting m43 journalism from you, but if you do get tired of it, or even decide to move to another system, I bet most of us would still be there watching.
(P.S.: your portraits on the street are what made a loyal reader in the beginning, they are really astounding. But all your street photos have a huge appeal, they're the reason Malaysia is near the top of my list of international trips :)
(P.S. pt2: sorry for the huge comment but, I do believe feedback is important and, as a real fan of your work, I felt compelled to write one that expresses sincerely why you have so many loyal followers. Not to be sycophantic, but to reinforce that what you do has real, personal value to a lot of us)
Thanks so much for the super kind comment, and I don't mind long comments at all. I do write long articles so if people can spend their time going through my rambling, I can do the same with their comments.
DeleteI appreciate the show of support and yeah, I will always try my best to stay true to myself, and being open minded is very important being a writer/blogger/YouTuber. I don't want to miss out important details, even if it means some things that I dislike about my favorite products that I am reviewing. Being honest is very important, because if people find out that I lie in my reviews, why would they come back in the future? I want to continue to do what I do, and I don't want it to end so soon.
Staying balanced in doing what I want vs what is expected of me will be an ongoing process. I just need to keep going and shooting and make more content! Thanks for being here.