Hey all 🙂
Hope you’ve had a nice season of holidays and have had time off to spend either doing something you enjoy, spending time with family and friends, or both.Â
Thank you if you have recently subscribed! I haven’t written since August due to a family/personal crisis and moving back home to the US. I did send an email out to the lovely subscribers who were in the paid level, but I couldn’t bring myself, at the time, to share anything in general. Now though, I’m settling back into life here in the US and processing the reverse culture shock…
While I’m not going to be able to go back to writing as much as I was on Substack, I do want to send out newsletters here and there with updates and happenings. Most likely, in 2024, it will be max once a month.
In this one, I want to tie a bow around 2023 and then bid it good riddance! Ha, no, while 2023 might have been life altering for me in a not very nice way, there were many great moments still. So thank you for being here, thank you for supporting the channel and the Substack, and I wish you the best for 2024!Â
Let me know what you are doing or looking forward to in the new year?
Here’s a recap of sorts of 2023 🙂
The Youtube channel added around 2.2K subscribers which blows my mind! One of the propellants was being mentioned on Nico’s Photo Show after I started making news videos to go along with our new news round-ups on 35mmc.com. We chatted with Nico before starting the videos to make sure he was okay with it since I was nervous about stepping on his toes. He was super nice about it and very positive that someone else was interested in reporting the news on Youtube. So thank you Nico!Â
Here’s the latest news video :)
Another highlight (kind of), I monetized the channel recently with Youtube.
The last I mentioned of this was early summer and it was annoying to see Youtube put so many ads on my videos even though I wasn’t monetized and couldn’t turn them off. This is dancing with the devil, when you don’t control the platform and are at the mercy of their house rules. Well, I stuck it out and then monetized the channel after I qualified but what Youtube gives creators approximates about $1/hour spent in making the video, max, at the moment, for me. It’s more like $0.50 per hour or even less. So I definitely am not doing this for the money!Â
I love making videos, it’s something I think I’ve become a little addicted to. They are both for me and for others, but not for everyone. I feel lucky to only have a few trolling comments or mean spirited commenters. Production value and editing is something I’ve been very slowly improving on. I was going back and forth on filming and editing on my phone to using a Sony ZV-1 and Lumafusion on my iPad. I enjoy a little bit of editing, but not loads so I often trade off better production or planning in favor of spending more time doing other things off screen or being more spontaneous.Â
Anyways, I don’t want to blab on too much. Here are some cool top lists for 2023!
Top 10 Youtube Videos for 2023
Honorable mentions:
I always find it interesting to see or research the most popular videos or topics. It tells me what people care about and I like to stay updated on that. Not necessarily for deciding what videos to make, but because I have a deep curiosity about people and things like this in general! For example, I’ll often research general trends in different topics both locally, nationally, and globally. Sociology and psychology have always been areas of study that have been interesting to me :)Â
Did you have a favorite video of the year?
Top Nine Instagram Posts
Thanks to all of you that engage back with me through this channel and in film photography in general. I’ve met a lot of great people through this passion and it’s added so much positivity and fun to life! Aside from the select few, the film community that I’ve experienced has been so lovely.
Let me know a favorite moment or highlight for your 2023 in the comments :)
Have a wonderful New Years celebration and I’ll see you in 2024!!
~ MollyÂ
p.s. If you like instant photography, I started a thing on Instagram that might become a bigger thing in 2024 - check it out here.
Sorry to hear your 2023 hasn’t been so good.. may 2024 be a much better one. Thank you for all you do, both here and elsewhere in the photographic community. Much appreciated. Happy New Year!
Favourite moment of the year was walking into analogue spotlight and hearing an American accent shout ‘foooocalll matterrrrr’ 😂