I am incredibly excited because, as of yesterday, I have a community tab on my YouTube channel.
Why is that so exciting?
I’ll tell you why! But first, I would like to share something with you that you may not know about me.
My husband and I have been involved in building communities for a very long time. As a matter of fact, we even met during one of my husband’s projects. He had responded to a call-to-action from an American photographer and started the South African leg of “Help Portrait” – a movement that gathered volunteer photographers that dedicated their time and expertise to go into underprivileged communities and take peoples’ photographs, print them and give them back to them for free.
It was an amazing and humbling experience that made me acutely aware of the immense economic disparity in our country (South Africa, for my international readers). Also, it put me in the fortunate position to meet many photographers from all walks of life and on different levels in their photographic journey.
Eventually, this led to us hosting meetings and workshops and as a result, our passion for sharing in the photographic community became stronger and stronger. Many years later we started social coffeehouse events around Fujifilm that grew into popular photographic gatherings with a strong following.
Then COVID hit, which as we all know, meant the end of that.
Thanks to my husband’s foresight, we had already turned our attention to the virtual space and, to cut a very long story short, this enabled us in time, to start #SOOC. After reaching out to and then collaborating with Ritchie Roesch of Fuji X Weekly, the show was born.
From the start, our vision for this show was to reach and gather likeminded photographers who love to share in the journey of shooting straight out of camera and to build a platform where everyone can connect and exchange their experiences.
Do you see where this is going now? Correct!
Thanks to the new “Community Tab” on my YouTube channel, we now have a new home for all things #SOOC! I am now able to post other content like questions and polls. So, apart from live broadcasts, I will be able to connect with you in an interactive way, which also means that it will be super easy for you to give me feedback and take part in discussions around topics. I believe that this will make #SOOC a better experience for all of us and help in growing our community!
What do you think?
And following on that note, I’d like to invite you to head over to the YouTube community and start answering some of the questions that are already waiting for you there! And if I can make one last request, please consider subscribing to my channel. I’d appreciate your support!
Thank you for being here with me and for being part of this very exciting journey!
