5 Photography YouTube Channels That Changed How I See
The photographers and educators I follow for inspiration, creativity and a deeper understanding of photography
I watch quite a lot of photography content on YouTube, but over time I have become much more selective about the channels I actually return to.
I am not particularly interested in knowing which camera I supposedly need next, or whether a new lens is slightly sharper than the one I already own. What keeps me watching is something else: photographers who make me think, who show me a different way of seeing a scene, or who occasionally make me question the way I approach my own photography.
The five channels below are not a ranking, and I am certainly not suggesting that they are the five best photography channels on YouTube. They are simply five that I personally follow and enjoy.
They are also very different from one another. That variety is exactly why I follow them.
01 — The Photographic Eye
Learning to see before learning to shoot
If I had to choose the channel on this list that makes me think most about photography itself, it would probably be The Photographic Eye.
Alex Kilbee spends remarkably little time trying to convince me that I need another piece of equipment. Instead, he talks about photographs, photographers, visual language and, most importantly, seeing. That distinction has become increasingly important to me. The technical side of photography can be learned. Aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focusing and exposure eventually become familiar. Cameras change and software changes, but the much more difficult question remains the same:
Why does one photograph make me stop and look while another does not?
I enjoy the way Alex approaches that question. His videos often introduce photographers, ideas or ways of looking at images that I might not otherwise have considered. Sometimes I agree with his conclusions and sometimes I do not, but that is almost beside the point. A good photography channel should not simply tell me what to do. It should make me think about what I am doing.
The Photographic Eye does that for me.
What I Take From This Channel
Photography improves when I spend more time studying photographs rather than cameras.
What I take from The Photographic Eye is the importance of observation, curiosity and visual awareness. The more photography I study, including work that is very different from my own, the more possibilities I begin to notice when I am standing behind the camera myself.
02 — Thomas Heaton
The experience behind the landscape photograph
Thomas Heaton is probably the photographer on this list whose working environment feels most familiar to me.
Landscape photography is often presented online as a sequence of spectacular locations followed by spectacular photographs. My own experience is usually rather less predictable. Sometimes the light arrives. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I reach a location with an image already in my mind and discover something completely different. On other occasions I spend a long time looking for a composition and return without an image that I particularly like. That is one reason I enjoy Thomas Heaton's channel.
His videos are not only about the photograph at the end. The journey, the weather, the search for a composition, the changing conditions and even the disappointment are part of the story. I relate to that. For me, landscape photography has never been only about collecting successful images. A large part of its attraction is simply being outside with a camera, slowing down and looking carefully at a place. Heaton's videos often capture that feeling very well.
What I Take From This Channel
Not every photography trip needs to produce a portfolio photograph. This sounds obvious, but it is easy to forget when we constantly see other photographers publishing only their successful images. Sometimes I come home with a photograph. Sometimes I come home having learned something about a location, the light or even about the way I photograph. Both have value.
03 — Alan Schaller
Light, geometry and the decisive moment
Alan Schaller is the outsider on this list, and that is precisely why I wanted to include him. I came to photography primarily through landscapes and seascapes, while Schaller is best known for his distinctive black and white street photography. At first glance, those worlds might seem far apart. I don't think they are.
What attracts me to his photography is not simply the subject matter. It is the way he uses light, shadow, geometry, scale and human figures to organize a frame. Watching his work makes me notice how little is sometimes required to create a strong photograph. A wall, a shadow and a single person can be enough. That simplicity interests me, particularly because landscape photographers can easily fall into the opposite trap, trying to include everything a beautiful location offers.
Schaller's work reminds me to ask a different question:
What can I remove?
I also find his approach interesting precisely because his black and white photography is very different from my own. While much of my black and white work is rooted in landscapes and fine-Art photography, Schaller applies many of the same fundamental elements, light, shape, contrast and tone to the streets. Seeing those principles used in such a different environment gives me another way of thinking about my own images.
What I Take From This Channel
I should not only study photographers who photograph what I photograph. Some of the ideas that have influenced me most have come from completely different photographic genres. Street and architecture photography makes me think differently about timing, geometry and the relationship between people and their surroundings. Black and white photography makes me pay closer attention to light and tonal relationships.
04 — FotoTripper, Gavin Hardcastle
Serious landscape photography without taking yourself too seriously
Photography can sometimes become very serious. Perhaps too serious. That is one reason I enjoy Gavin Hardcastle's FotoTripper.
Behind the humour is a photographer who clearly takes landscape photography, composition and technique seriously. But the videos rarely feel like lectures, and I find that combination refreshing.
There is also plenty of practical photography. Composition, focus stacking, exposure blending, panoramas and post-processing all appear naturally because they are solutions to situations encountered while making photographs rather than isolated technical exercises.
That is generally how I prefer to learn technique. I am much more interested in understanding why a photographer decides to use focus stacking, for example, than simply learning which buttons to press.
Technique becomes useful when there is a photographic reason for using it. And somewhere between all of that, FotoTripper is also a reminder that standing in a beautiful landscape with a camera is supposed to be enjoyable.
What I Take From This Channel
Learn the technique, then stop thinking about the technique. Focus stacking, exposure blending and Photoshop are tools. They can solve problems and expand possibilities, but they are not the photograph.
The photograph still begins with seeing something worth photographing. And enjoying the process certainly doesn't hurt.
05 — Christian Möhrle, The Phlog Photography
From RAW file to finished photograph
Christian Möhrle usually enters my photographic process at a very different point.
The landscape trip is over. The camera is back in the bag. The RAW files are on the computer. Now comes another set of decisions.
I enjoy post-processing, but I don't see it simply as a way of making a photograph more impressive. For me, editing is about deciding what I want the image to become and then finding the most appropriate way to get there. That is what I find useful about Christian's tutorials.
His Lightroom, Camera Raw and Photoshop workflows demonstrate what modern editing tools can do, but more importantly, they allow me to watch another photographer make a sequence of decisions.
Where should the viewer look first?
Does the foreground need more attention?
Should the sky become quieter or more dramatic?
Does the colour support the atmosphere of the photograph?
Those questions interest me far more than the exact value of a particular slider. Modern editing software gives us extraordinary control, especially with masks and local adjustments. But having more control also makes restraint more important. Not everything that can be changed needs to be changed.
What I Take From This Channel
I try to begin an edit by deciding what I want from the photograph rather than immediately moving sliders.
What attracted me to the scene?
Where do I want the eye to travel?
What should the photograph feel like?
Once those questions have answers, Lightroom and Photoshop become tools for expressing an idea rather than places to search randomly for one.
Five Channels, Five Different Lessons
Looking at these five channels together, I realize that I don't follow them for the same reasons.
The Photographic Eye makes me think about seeing.
Thomas Heaton reminds me why I enjoy the landscape photography experience itself.
Alan Schaller makes me pay more attention to light, geometry, timing and simplicity.
FotoTripper combines practical landscape photography with experimentation, and reminds me not to take the whole thing too seriously.
Christian Möhrle makes me think more carefully about what happens after I press the shutter.
None of them makes me want to become a copy of the photographer behind the channel. Quite the opposite.
Over the years, I have increasingly felt that developing as a photographer means collecting small influences from many different places. A composition here. An idea about light there. A different approach to editing. A photograph that makes me reconsider something I thought I already understood.
Some of those influences disappear. Others stay. And slowly, they become part of the way we see.
That is why I continue watching photography on YouTube. I am not looking for someone to tell me how photography should be done. I am looking for ideas that make me stop, think and occasionally see something differently the next time I pick up my camera.
And for me, that is worth far more than another camera review.
If you'd like to see how some of these ideas find their way into my own photography, explore my portfolio.
Frequently Asked Questions
What photography YouTube channels do I recommend?
The five I personally return to are The Photographic Eye, Thomas Heaton, Alan Schaller, FotoTripper and Christian Möhrle's The Phlog Photography. I follow each for a different reason, from visual thinking and composition to landscape photography and post-processing.
Can YouTube actually make you a better photographer?
I think it can — if we spend more time watching content about photography and less time watching content about buying photography equipment. Studying how other photographers see, compose, work in the field and edit their images can introduce ideas that we can explore in our own photography.
Why follow photographers from different genres?
Because photographic ideas are not restricted to genres. I can learn timing from a street photographer, geometry from architecture, patience from landscape photography and tonal relationships from black-and-white work. I may never photograph the same subjects, but I can still learn from the way another photographer sees them.
