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Thank you a 1000 times! My creative journey to this milestone 📸 🎥 📱
Today I am doing something different! I decided to share my journey in photography and filmmaking so you can see where I started and how I progressed over the years. Nobody can pick up a camera and instantly take award winning shots. You will see that when I started, my first video where not great but by putting in hard work I was able to make content to grow this channel up to 5000 subscribers and become a YouTube Partner. I hope that this video will help motive you and show that over time, your efforts will be rewarded! I end this video by taking about the reasons I started this YouTube channel and what to expect for 2021.
WATCH NEXT ✨
- Pixel vs DSLR - RAW Edition https://youtu.be/CFqMMK4ug3g
- Google Pixel 4a https://youtu.be/7wNDXsDKoCg
- Astrophotography with a phone https://youtu.be/LwnMOsq0Mpk
- DJI Pocket 2 Review https://youtu.be/j35Xy3ibRxc
- My Shorts Films https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6kUdfoIX4tzfkLeRtQhorY4HQ89RVH9I
- Short Films I worked on https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6kUdfoIX4txlOd42__wMCDX4IFjoFNbP
✋ COME SAY HI!! ✋
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford (http://bit.ly/lba_instagram)
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/loic294
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lbaphotographie
📖 CHAPTERS 📖
00:00 Thank you a 1000 times!
00:13 Introduction
00:38 Presenting myself
01:11 My journey in photography & filmmaking
07:45 Reason I started this channel
08:34 What to expect in 2021?
09:01 Final thoughts
🖼 SHOP FOR PRINTS 🖼
- My online store: https://store.lbaphotographie.ca
🎶 MY MUSIC 🎶
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/iu5gau/
📸 GEAR I USE ON YOUTUBE 📸
https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo https://geni.us/dji-pocket-2-combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card https://geni.us/sandisk-extreme-128gb
- Canon 6D Mk https://geni.us/canon-6d-mkii
- Google Pixel 4a https://geni.us/google-pixel-4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM https://geni.us/canon-lens-24-105
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-16-35
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens https://geni.us/canon-lens-70-200
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD https://geni.us/vanguard-veo-265cb
- DJI MAVIC AIR https://geni.us/lba-dji-mavic-air
🌍 MY PERSONAL WEBSITE 🌍
#roadto1k #myjourney #photography
thank you a thousand times or as i reach towards 5000 subscribers i should say thank you 5000 times 2020 has been a difficult year for all of us but you definitely helped making mine a little bit brighter as we start this new year i want to take some time to present myself and share my creative journey you will see that the first pictures and videos i took were well let's just say pretty bad i hope by sharing my journey you're going to be able to see how i progressed over the years most of the times we see what critters have become not where they started i will also share at the end of this video the reasons why i started my youtube channel and what to expect for the next year i'm luck ben mahalford i'm 24 years old and during my last semester of my bachelor's degree in software engineering as you guys will see i had a passion for photographing filmmaking since i can remember i got a question about where i live so here's the answer i live in the city of montreal which is located in quebec canada i love the outdoors and this is the reasons why i'll film at these videos outside even if this means that i'm gonna freeze my hands to make this video over the years i started playing with the cameras we had around the house in 2008 i received my first camera it was a six megapixel digital camera the first pictures i took of this camera were well let's just say it terrible they were completely blurry and unusable what is super funny looking back is that you see a series of pictures where i'm looking at the screen wondering what is happening with the pictures a few minutes later voila i found the solution it was the camera was on the macro mode even though i didn't know what was macro at the time almost two years later in 2009 after making countless researches and saving all my money i decided to buy a new camera the sony dsc t90 it was a 12 megapixel camera with a touchscreen in the back which was super rare at the time like most people i started by taking a few selfies and way too many pictures of flowers to my pleasing surprise some of the pictures of flowers still look pretty good to this day 2009 was also the year of her first big road trip with my family we left montreal to go up to the rockies this is where i discovered my passion for photography i took over 2 000 pictures during that trip and got some pretty good ones but to be honest i think it was more luck than anything else because i didn't know anything about photography at that time i had one big problem with my new camera it could film 720p footage but sd cards and hard drives were super expensive at that time i decided to stick with my family camera which would film on mini dvd tapes do people even remember tape cameras it was super cheap to buy new tapes and easy to use one thing you need to understand is that using a bad camera that had terrible image quality never stopped me from curating content and neither should it stop you after making more and more videos and taking a few thousand shots i decided it was time to upgrade my camera we are now in 2011. i was taking filmmaking more seriously and the tools i had right now were not allowing me to achieve what i wanted to i decided to go with the canon t2i to this data i think to the canon t2i is one of the best cameras canon ever created sara dici and film mariat both used this camera at their beginnings it had one big problem it didn't have autofocus and video this never stopped me from filming stuff with it the next few years were all about learning the most i could i would take any occasion i could with family friends or school to take pictures or film some videos i think the best example of this is when my little sister started taking cross-country ski lessons my dad was an assistant ski instructor my little sister had her classes and i had three hours to kill every saturday nobody asked me to do it and nobody paid me to do it either but i loved the experience because i learned so much during the four years you can clearly see me continuously improving every single time i learned how camera settings affect the pictures how to get better composition and how to edit the shots i also use this occasion to film a few videos where i learned so much i applied the same idea with some school projects instead of doing a presentation of the class i would ask my teachers if i could make a video most of the time they accepted i would always push myself even more by using techniques like green screen or other editing techniques to make the videos more entertaining the thing you need to understand is that if you want to become better at an art form you actually need to practice it in the real world in 2012 we did a second family road trip this time on the canadian east coast equipped with a new dslr i was convinced i would only get amazing shots i remember coming back from that trip and being very disappointed by the pictures i got they looked nothing like the ones i got online even though i got a few pretty good ones that's the moment where i realized i would have to put a lot more work inside of my photography if i really wanted to step it up and that's exactly what i did now let's fast forward to 2016. that's about the time where i started making short films with my friend brandon it was an instant learning experience being able to share ideas and collaborate with somebody else i think it's important to realize how much somebody else can help you grow all of these projects were great it wasn't a time in my life where i was the most creative i would still take pictures for my school association but i would rarely go out and take some pictures or videos for myself the reason was that i had a startup so between the startup work and school i didn't really have any time for my creative activities in 2017 things started to change when i was invited to go to vancouver in november i decided it was finally time to make my first vlog i was a huge fan of casey neistat and he really inspired me to make my own videos i filmed a bunch of footage during the three days being there but i never made a video because the footage was just too random to tell a story earlier that year i took the plane for the first time to go on a ski trip in the french alps this trip really reminded me how much i enjoyed taking pictures in 2019 i left my hometown of montreal to go to vancouver for eight months a few weeks before leaving i decided to buy the dji osmo pocket because i wanted to take my youtube channel more seriously i wanted a small camera that would allow me to capture my adventures and document my time over there i ended up only publishing five videos during my time there even though i filmed 10 full videos some of them didn't have enough footage and some of them i just didn't have the time to edit them but i also took ten thousand pictures and this is the time where i decided to start pushing my dates to make the pictures look unique not just good starting 2020 i knew i wanted to make more videos i decided to set myself two goals which were to publish 12 videos and also grow my subscribing from 50 to 250 subscribers from january to august i only managed to publish five videos so at the end of august i decided to set myself some deadlines and also plan the videos in advance this is crazy how much it helped me stay on track i had a problem where when editing the video i would go down a rabbit hole to try and make the video as perfect as possible but i really see better results even if i pass twice as much time on the edit these deadlines allow me to publish videos every two weeks in september in october i was super happy in the beginning of october because i finally reached my objective of 250 subscribers and i had 11 videos already published little did i know that the algorithm would pick up some of my videos and that only a few weeks away later i would become a youtube partner this is the moment where i decided to double down and start publishing videos every single week now let's talk about my plans for 2020. i think it's important you understand why i wanted to start this channel before understanding my plans for 2020. the first reason is to improve my english as i'm working more and more in english making this video is a great way of listening to myself and realizing the errors i make when i speak the second reason is to document my journey over the years i'm less and less inside of my family photos or photos of my friends because i'm the one always taking the pictures so by making these videos i'm able to be in front of the camera and document my journey the third and last reason is to become better at photography and filmmaking by making these videos i always have to push myself to become better at photography and i also push myself and every single video i make to try and make something different what should you expect from my channel in i'm going to continue talking about photography mobile devices and gear reviews one thing that's going to change is i'm going to start talking a little bit more about my journey so you can grow at the same time i am growing i would also love to know what you want to see in my channel in 2021 but just please keep in mind i just started this channel and i don't have the budget yet to buy multiple phones or a lot of gear to do reviews i want to end by saying this if you're studying photography or filmmaking in you're super lucky most smartphones take incredible pictures and very good video you also have access to free software to edit the pictures and the videos which is incredible the only thing you might be missing is some practice so go take some pictures or some videos you might not notice but i took over 80 000 pictures since i started if i tried telling you that most of my pictures were good i would be totally lying most of them are terribly bad but it's like continuing taking more and more pictures that i became better over the years again a huge thank you to everybody that supported me in my creative journey i want to say a special thank to my friend nobuhu that followed me for the last 10 years and always believed in my creative activities my most popular video on youtube is going to reach 100 000 views in the next few days which is totally insane if you enjoyed this video please let me know by hitting the like button below if you want to see my adventures in turn into new one be sure to hit that big red subscribe button see you in the next one and love from the cold canadian winter bye you
Video Links
- Pixel vs DSLR - RAW Edition
- Google Pixel 4a
- Astrophotography with a phone
- DJI Pocket 2 Review
- My Shorts Films
- Short Films I worked on
- Instagram: @loic.bellemare.alford ()
- My online store
- Affiliate link for Epidemic Sound
- https://kit.co/loic.bellemare.alford/youtube-gear
- DJI Pocket 2 Creator Combo
- 128 gb MicroSD card
- Canon 6D Mk
- Google Pixel 4a
- Canon ZOOM LENS EF24-105mm F4L IS II USM
- Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 Lens
- Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L-IS II USM Lens
- VANGUARD VEO 2 265CB CARBON FIBER TRIPOD
- DJI MAVIC AIR
- http://bit.ly/loicba
What is this video about?
Thank you so much for reaching this milestone with me. As I hit 5000 subscribers, I wanted to take a step back and share something personal: the real story of how I got here.
What you see from most creators is their polished work—the shots that made it, the videos that went viral. But I started somewhere very different. In 2008, I got my first digital camera—a six megapixel point-and-shoot—and my initial photos were, honestly, terrible. Completely blurry. Unusable. I didn't even understand what macro mode was. But that didn't stop me from picking up a camera again.
Over the years, I upgraded. A Sony DSC-T90 in 2009. That family road trip to the Rockies where I took 2000 photos and discovered my real passion. A Canon T2i in 2011 that taught me everything about manual settings and composition. Countless school projects where I pushed myself with green screen and editing techniques. Ski lessons with my sister every Saturday—unpaid, unasked, but invaluable practice.
The pattern I've noticed is this: you don't become good at something by watching tutorials or owning the best gear. You become good by doing the work, failing, learning, and doing it again. I've taken over 80,000 pictures since I started. Most of them are bad. But somewhere in that practice, something shifted.
By 2016, I was collaborating with friends on short films. By 2017, inspired by Casey Neistat, I made my first vlog. By 2019 in Vancouver, I started pushing my editing style and thinking differently about my work. And by late 2020, after setting real deadlines and publishing consistently, the algorithm picked up. Things accelerated. I became a YouTube Partner.
I started this channel for three reasons: to improve my English, to document my own journey (since I'm always behind the camera), and to keep pushing myself creatively. That last part is still the most important. Every video makes me think about how to do something different, something better.
If you're learning photography or filmmaking right now, you have everything you need. Good phones. Free editing software. The only thing missing is the practice. Take the pictures. Make the videos. Don't worry if they're not perfect yet. That's not the point.