People and Vlogging : The 9 Most Important Aspects To Consider For Your First Vlog

     

 If you’re reading this, and you’re wondering what does it take for you to create your first vlog,  simply trying to get a glimpse on an interesting subject, or ended up here by accident, you’re in the right place.

   My first thought about launching a vlog came to me  a few months ago,  but it’s only recently that I got the nerve to actually do it.  The equipment I currently own,and use for my recordings is:  a Nikon D5100 with two lenses: a 18-50mm and a 50mm 1.8g,  an external microphone Olympus ME15.and a Velbon tripod CX-888.

The 9 aspects you should be considering.

1: Video Quality :

   This is one of the key aspects you should take into consideration. If your viewers can’t see what’s happening on screen, they are more  likely going to click the exit button. My Nikon d5100 function has a great video function.

   It can shoot movies at 1080p resolution, 25 fps, and the quality of the recordings is more than ok. I recommend this camera for all of you guys out there on a budget that are looking for a camera that makes great photographies and video at the same time.

My favourite lense for vlogging is the 50 mm 1.8g, it gives me the extra image quality .

2. Audio Quality:

   The integrated microphone the camera has, is not always going to sound that well, trust me , I’ve tried. It sounds like you’re speaking inside a cave, which is something you don’t want. You want your recording to have the best sound possible so you have to go and get an external microphone.      With as much as 30$ you can get something decent and get ten times the sound quality you’d get if you settled for the internal microphone.

3. Lighting

   Lighting is everything.  My best advice for you guys is to take advantage of the wonderfull natural light our sun kindly gives us every day, position yourself facing the window. That way your face will have little to no shadows. If you’re shooting at night you’re going to need artificial light.If you can’t afford something professional just yet,  I recommend desk lamps, at decent distance from you, so the image doesn’t get overexpose.d

4. Angle Of The Filming

You should position the camera at an angle that suits the message you’re trying to send.

The angles available are:

Low Angle : The camera is looking up at the subject.

Eye –Level : The camera is at the same height as the subject.

High angle : The camera is looking down on the subject.

Bird’s Eye View : The camera is directly over the subject.

Most vloggers use an eye level angling, which I  also used for my first entry , but that doesn’t necessarily have to be your case. You can be creative and use whatever suits your needs and imagination.

5. Practice Makes Perfect

 Practise what you are going to say in front of a mirror. Record yourself and objectively examine the aspects that you think could be better. Don’t discourage yourself if at first your not that great. Nobody was born with their lessons learned.

6. Use A Tripod

If you don’t want to look for objects in the house that meet the height requirement I strongly advise you to invest your money in a tripod . For as much as 40$ you can get a decent tripod for your recording. PS. Make sure you learn how to use the tripod before you put the camera on it, or you might end up crashing your equipment.

7. Find Something Interesting To Say Or Show To Your Audience.

Time flies nowadays and people want to hear/see something that’s worth their while. You can write something down before you go on air, I sure do. Everybody has something interesting to say, i'm sure you have something as well.

8. Learn How To Use Video And Audio Editing Programs

They will be your best friends. If you misspelled a word or forgot to say something, you can shoot that part again, cut it and add it to the previous video.

If you want to add background sound you’re definitely going to need some basic audio editing skills. There are plenty of tutorials on youtube that show you exactly how it’s done. I recommend Adobe Premiere and Adobe Audition.

9. Get Your Right Attitude On!

Your words must match the tone of your voice.Believe what you’re saying and the audience will also.

That's everything i have for today, thanks for reading. Make sure to subscribe to my newsletter so you don't miss anything.

Ok, you're now ready to go viral. Go break a leg, old sport. (Leonardo Di Caprio Impression)

Love And Romance - How My First Kiss Experience Was Like. Do You Remember Yours?

Love Is The Most Fundamental Element Around Us

   This is something i wrote on another blog of mine, about a year and a half ago, on 8th of april 2013. I thought it was something worth sharing. Hope you guys enjoy it.

   Hello dear internet world, i  must say i am indeed happy that i can write again for everyone to see. I have envisioned myself writing about this subject for quite a while now, but something has somehow managed to stop me every time, untill today.

   Today is a special day, a day of hope and new promise for the future that lies ahead of every one of us. It is Monday, the beggining of a new week. We should not fear mondays because they offer the prospects of renewal. Whatever we feel like we did wrong on the previous week we can fix it this time.

   This week i am starting to write again. Because if i am to be honest to myself, i feel the most free-spirited and hearfull person when i do so. My imagination can be free when i make up things and put them together in sentences. There is something magical about the mixing of words that brings joy in every cell of my being.

   Prelude being enough i will bring the subject to it's table.

   Have you ever wondered what is the purpose of life? Many would answer this question as follows: the purpose of life is to give life a purpose, and i would say they are right but i must add. Life is about that and much more, life is about finding love, safeguarding it with all strength and sharing it with as many people you can. 

   Love is the most precious coin, we human beings can offer one another. Money is but a shadow of what true love can buy. Love can buy family, friends, connections, memories for a life time and beyond. Can you recall anything like it?I sure can not.

   I will forever believe in the power of love as long as i draw breath and spread shadow around me. It gives me strength . It give me hope.

   I have little to no friends that share my vision of life. If i were to tell them that i only search for the girl of my dreams and nothing less they would, most of the times, laugh and tell me i should comfort myself with what i can get.

   I must decline the offer of fake love, because i do not believe in it, i have the power to stand my ground for as long as it takes. I will not forfeit, neither free neither at gun point. 

   I must say, i would not be as strong i am today in my convictions if it were not for the events of last year's september. On the very last friday of the month i have found myself in the company of "the girl next door" type of girl, and i found out how love tasted like for the first time.

   If i could turn back time, i would turn it one thousand times for me to be able to kiss that girl again, again and again. Time froze for me that day and a great deal of my soul is constantly thinking of that moment, i fear i will not get it back untill i find the girl next door again.

   Unfortunately i was not strong or wise enough to make the right steps for me to keep her at my side.

   Though unfortunate as it may seem that i find myself stranded alone with the most confused set of feelings a human being can have i regret nothing.

   I had my first kiss on that bridge 6 months ago and it happened with the perfect girl which made the experience more than i could have ever wished for.

   It is probably one of my most vivid memories. It was late friday night, and this was the first time we met after knowing eachother and talking online for a few years or so with pauses

   Honestly i would wait 300 years or more, if it were possible, and i knew i could relive the same experience for the first time once more. I am a constant dreamer, and in my case it is dreams that keep me awake. I would be lost without my dreams and pray the world never becomes short of us.

   I think the first kiss experience is something that fundamentaly changes who we are, if we find the right person. For me being the incurable romantic that i am, it helped me find hope again. I had lost hope for a long period of my life and learned to live without it as well.It was never a good place to be, but i never saw a way out untill.

   Now i can't keep myself from wondering. What if? What if i had told her in that moment and second, quote " This is exacty how i envisioned my first kiss would be, it is perfect and i now can go quietly dive into the sunset knowing a great wish has been fullfilled"

   The girl never knew that was my first kiss to begin with, untill i told her by mistake, online. As surprised as she was and confrunted with the question of why didn't i tell her before, so was i. I never thought something that simple could of made the difference. And there i was, to late. 

   I have kissed a few girls since but nothing even comes close to what i felt on that day. I honestly felt like the rules of gravity, of physics or any other man made rule did not apply to me anymore.

   After we took separate ways, i ran with all of my will, i did not ran from anything, i just felt this incredible energy inside of me and i didn’t know what to do with it. I knew i wanted to shout to the world, to the entire universe if possible. To shout a big thank you to the heaveans and everybody in it for conspiring and bringing me there.

   I stopped in front of the church and i thank God. I ran like a mad man...a mad man in love. I felt like i could change the world. I felt so powerfull that i thought nothing in the world could bring me down.

   After being given birth into this world , that one moment when it was the two of us as one, i must say , i felt more alive than i can ever remember/imagine. Everything had colour and meaning.

   I will end my statement by saying. I will fight and find that feeling once again.

   I will always remember the girl i shared my first kiss with. How was your first kiss like?

How i made my first successful photography. How you can make yours. Tip & tricks for a great experience.

   

  It was spring 2012, the year the mayan calendar ended. I had just bought my very own first camera. My budget was around 150$, so i went for the best i could at the price.

      The camera i chose was a Fujifilm S4000. I really enjoyed that camera, the thing i remember i loved the most about it, was it's big optical zoom, around 30x, and i really enjoyed the possibility of not being necessary for me to move around, in order to get a new frame.

      Being an amateur as i was, i didn't know very much then about composition, lighting, white balance and many other aspects a photographer should have in mind when he's preparing to take a shot.

     

       I'll be completely honest with you, at first i used the auto function the camera had most of the time, and it took me a considerable amount of time to go from auto to manual.

       I recommend all of the new photographers out there, to take advantage of the auto function, and allow the camera to find the most suitable settings for your scene.

       Don't concern yourselves with having to set the camera just now, you'll have plenty of time to worry about that later. I sometimes use the auto function to see what the camera thinks about a setting, just to get a second opinion.

       I wish i could relive those first days of discovering photography. I had an incredible urge to create when i first discovered this passion, and i still have it, but not at those first levels. It was so, i believe, because i knew nothing about it, that i was not afraid to experiment, to indulge myself, to break "the rules" i didn't know even existed. Now that i know more about the matter at hand, i sometimes happen to overthink a situation and miss the subject/frame i'm looking for. 

      Some great photographies, i can dare to say, can be made without necessarily knowing all of the camera settings.

      

       The main focus of a photographer should be the subject. Stop thinking if you set the white balance right, leave that to the camera if you don't know, shoot raw, and get the shot! 

       The photograph i posted at the beginning of my article was made with zero knowledge about anything. I know it may not be much for professionals out there, but for me it's one of the best i've ever made and i keep it as a reminder that i don't need to know every technical aspect to make good art. 

       I hope you enjoyed reading this. Have a good one!

      

        

How i discovered photography and learned to love it...

     
 I will always remember the day, i had my first encounter with a nikon camera. Sounds like the beginning of a love story and it most definitely is.

       It began as a regular monday morning, and everything seemed to go as usual, but it was far from that, because fate had something else in store for me on that day.

       I was still in my pijamas, i remember i needed to look for something in my sister's bedroom. At first, i didn't notice it, but after a few glances on the computer screen, my eye sight was suddently distracted by an interesting looking box.

       The box had a big title on it : "Coolpix L120 " with an interesting yellow square on the left side with the words "Nikon" on it.

       Of course i've heard about Nikon before, but i have to be honest with you, at the moment, i didn't know jack squat about photography, cameras, or anything else related to the matter. I knew one thing though: It's probably one of the most important things you need to know, if you want to make photography.

       You have to know how to press the shutter button. I know it may sound crazy, but once you  start thinking about it, you know i'm right. The button is the most important key aspect of a camera. You can have the most expensive camera equipment in the whole wide world, but if you don't know how to press the button or it suddently breaks on you and doesn't work anymore, the camera is absolete, at least until you take it to the repair bench.

       So, I knew then how to press the shutter button, and boy oh boy after i've pressed it once, an unbelievable feeling got to me and i knew i never would want to stop doing it for the rest of my life. I didn't think about this, at first, but on a closer look, me describing my experience, sounds really close to making love for the first time.

       I think there can be no better comparison. For me photography is love, because everytime i create something unique with my work, i let more love into the world.
That's what we should all be doing. We should be finding what we love because, in the end, that's what makes us and the world, we live in, better. There's no substitute for love.

      There's something about the shutter sound, the camera makes, that's just magical for me.

       I was 19 years old when this happened, and my greatest thanks go to my lovely sister. If she hadn't had the magnificent idea of purchasing that camera, who knows, when or if i would have discovered photography anymore.

       If i could be born again tommorow, i wish i could do so with a camera in my hands. That's how much i'm hooked into this. 

       Months after that crucial moment i wondered. That was clearly not the first time i touched a camera or made a photograph. Why was that moment decisive?

       There can be numerous reasons i could come up with, but only one comes up to mind right now as the most important one: I've never held a nikon camera before. I know all of you canon fanboys out there are going to ooo me but you shouldn't. I hold as much respect as i do for canon, as i have for nikon. Both camera producing companies have great delivering systems, and i couldn't point out who's better if i wanted to.

       In my opinion, the camera doesn't matter that much, that we should be hunting for the latest gear out there, with the hopes of it helping us to deliver better photography.

       That's really just an excuse photographers use, myself included, to not improve with what we have at hand. " That photographer has better equipment than me, that's why he gets those awesome pics all the time"  Rings a bell? I think we've all been there. 

      Of course if someone knocked on my door, and left me a bag with the latest lenses and camera body, i wouldn't say no. I would probably be awake and shoot like there's no tommorow for  three days in a row. Where was i again?

       The feeling the Nikon L120 gave me, when i first shot with it, was like a lightning bolt just hit me. I've never been shot by a lightning bolt , but i did get electrocuted twice, so i know what i'm talking about.

      The lightning bolt feeling still hits me, every time i pick up my camera. I now have a nikon d5100 with a kit lense(18-55mm) and portrait lense(50mm). Even though i've clearly upgraded , the nikon l120 will always be in my heart. 

      If you guys have had lightning bolt moments in your lifes or have been electrocuted before and lived to tell the tale and want to share that experience with me or simply want to comment on this article , be my guest.
Peace!


       

       



       

     

      



       

     

Who am i? - Who are you? - Who are we? - Fundamental questions of life.

         

                        

        My name is Alexander Cirstea. My family, friends and close ones call me Alex. I would like to think of you, as a friend of mine, so please feel free, to call me by my first name, as 

well.

       

       The first thought, that came into my mind, was to write with the help of my native language, but my goal, for the long term, is to reach as many people as possible, from all of the different countries our dear planet Earth holds so dear, and since romanian isn't an internationally known language just yet, i had to go with english.

       

     In case you're wondering who's the mysterious person behind these words, i have to disappoint you. A mystery is a mystery, but if you hang in there, and keep reading, you might just find out something you never knew.

      

       For that to happen, i will have to take you back to the day of my birth, the summer of 1992, on july the 9th.

       

      It was thursday, under the sign of Cancer. The word wide web was at its inception phase. The long Cold War between Russia and America had been over for a year now. The communist party from my country had been gone for almost three years.

      Some of the greatest movies, that were ever made, hit the big screen on that year.

 I strongly recommend, if you haven't seen these movies yet, to take time and do it.

       Here i will bring up only a few that made an impression on myself :

Scent of a woman, Batman Returns, Basic Instinct, The Last Of The Mohicans, 3 Ninjas, Chaplin, Of Mice and Men, White Men Can't Jump, A Few Good Men, Home Alone : Lost in New York.

       I can only guess,as a baby, i was eager to come into this world, because i didn't wait  for my 9 months milestone to arrive. On the third week of my eight month, of being in my mother's womb, i decided it was enough.

       I was a big baby, from what my parents tell me, with a modest weight of 4.2 kgs (9.2 lbs) at birth. Seems like i had a big appetite even before i was brought into the world.

       Being born shortly after the fall of the communist party, there weren't that many recording options available at that time for my parents unfortunately. Nowadays we have cellphones with cameras, stand alone professional cameras, basically all the means necessary to record the birth of our children.

       Even though more than one hundred and sixteen years had passed since the worlds first photograph was realised in 1826 France by Nicephore Niepce, my parents didn't have the luck to get such a device at the time. 

       If a golden fish granted me three magical wishes, one of them would most definitely be to go back for 3 seconds at the time and place of my birth, and photograph both my parents holding me in their arms.

       Out of all the photographs i could possibly take, that one i would cherish the most. Luckily, i was born with an abundant source of imagination, and i can see the moment crystal clear in my mind.

       I was the second child my parents had, I have a sister named Mary. She's five years older than me. She recently got married and is happily living with her husband in Germany. Congratulations sis'! I hope they make me an nephew or a niece, as soon as possible.

      When i was little, i used to be jealous on my sister, because she was bigger than me. Becoming an adult was one of my biggest wishes i had during my childhood.

      I remember, one night, i was in my bed looking at my arms and legs and wishing they would grow faster. Little did i know then, that time really flies when you're not looking and that i would grow up sooner than i ever thought.

      A famous Roman poet, Virgilius, once said : "Fugit irreparabile tempus". If i were to translate it, the english version would probably sound like: "Time inevitably runs".

       22 years have passed since the year of my birth, i now have a beautifull girlfriend, a unbelievable passion for life, i'm on the verge of launching my first book : "Past, Present, Future : Think Ahead", the future is reallly starting to look clear.  A few years from now, i will most likely be married to the love of my life, as my parents did before me, as their parents did before them, and so on, and i will give my share to the wonderfull cycle that's called life.

       I launched a question within the title of my article : "Who am I?". I'm afraid the answer is not as easy as the question. Sure, i could write down dozens of pages and tell you what i love, what i like, what i look for in life but that will give you just a small insight on who i am.

       My belief is, this is one of the most important questions, out of the many, that we've been sent here, to find the answer to. Once we find the answer to it,in my humble opinion, all of life's troubles are solved, because life is easy, when you know who you are, and what you want to get out of it.

       I sincerely hope you work hard, and find out who you are, and never give up this sacred quest, you've been given. So...who are you?