A Day Out With Mali Photography

There are a considerable number of downsides when it comes to running your own businesses. But there is one particularly notable upside: when a mate contacts you and says he’s taken a day off work, and asks if you’re free for a days photography, well… of course you are!

I’ve dialled back quite considerably on videoing my photo shoots these days, not because I don’t care about my YouTube audience, perhaps it’s because I actually care more about them than I used to. I certainly respect the fact that they tune in to watch my videos and leave such positive and generous feedback. Those levels of encouragement are hard to ignore.

However, I have felt recently that concentrating more effectively on my stills photography, and only sharing video content when the stills photography is good enough to warrant it is showing a greater degree of respect to my audience in maintaining and improving the quality of the content which I share.

So, back to my day out with Mali: I’d already decided well in advance that I would not attempt to video this. The concentration necessary would take its toll on my enjoyment of a day out with a good friend.

Mali of course saw it differently. But his run-and-gun, stream-of-consciousness style of vlogging, requires very little shot set-up or forethought for each piece to camera. That’s his appeal, what makes him so engaging, and I hope he never changes it.

Of course, it is royally underpinned by the highest quality photography. Don’t let his ebullient persona fool you into thinking that he has a similar attitude to his craft. When you see his images you can almost smell the introspection of him working on his post processing!

So, whilst he waxes lyrical and enthuses about every landscape, every splash of light, every jot of colour or lack of it, he always has a strong idea of how his images will be presented when the work is done.

On this day out I was more than happy to buzz around with my little Osmo Pocket gimbal camera shooting B-roll for Mali.

Who knows, one day his video might even be edited and published! Although I’m told his backlog at the moment is about three or four months, and stretches back to last autumn!

The conditions were extremely blustery as you would expect for this time of year in this part of the world. But we didn’t care at all. We had a great landscape photography day out at Trwyn Du, Penmon and Beaumaris on Anglesey.

And aside from the photography, the chitchat over a cheeseburger, catching up, putting the world to rights and all that goes with a day out with a like-minded friend who you don’t get to see that often – well, as I said, that’s one of the upsides of running your own businesses.