Donate to the podcast directly with the links below.
⚡️Donate any amount from a Bitcoin Lightning wallet ( including Cash.App ) to Billy Newman
⚡️Donate $5 from a Bitcoin Lightning wallet to Billy Newman
⚡️Donate $11.11 from a Bitcoin Lightning wallet to Billy Newman
https://yr.link/lightningpay11
⚡️Donate $50 from a Bitcoin Lightning wallet to Billy Newman
https://yr.link/lightningpay50
Relax With Rain has decided to be a listener supported production. This means the listeners contribute to Relax With Rain and Billy Newman both financially and through volunteerism. If you feel you are getting value from this, please help by becoming a supporter and send some sats.
*New* You can send a Bitcoin Lightning payment direct from the Cash.app
Get a Bitcoin Lightning wallet for free instant transfers
Value streaming payments system enables listeners to send Bitcoin micropayments to podcasters as they listen, in real-time. Start streaming value! It’s easy to remember: http://value4value.io/ newpodcastapps.com
I use https://fountain.fm
If you’re looking to discuss photography assignment work, or a podcast interview, please drop me an email. Drop Billy Newman an email here.
If you want to book a wedding photography package, or a family portrait session, please visit GoldenHourWedding.com or you can email the Golden Hour Wedding booking manager here.
If you want to look at my photography, my current portfolio is here.
If you want to purchase stock images by Billy Newman, my current Stock photo library is here.
If you want to learn more about the work Billy is doing as an Oregon outdoor travel guide, you can find resources on GoldenHourExperience.com.
If you want to listen to the Archeoastronomy research podcast created by Billy Newman, you can listen to the Night Sky Podcast here.
If you want to read a free PDF eBook written by Billy Newman about film photography: you can download Working With Film here. Yours free.
Want to hear from me more often?Subscribe to the Billy Newman Photo Podcast on Apple Podcasts here.
If you get value out of the photography content I produce, consider making a sustaining value for value financial contribution, Visit the Support Page here.
You can find my latest photo books all on Amazon here.
Website Billy Newman Photo https://billynewmanphoto.com/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/billynewmanphoto
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/billynewmanphotos/
Twitter https://twitter.com/billynewman
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/billynewman/
About https://billynewmanphoto.com/about/
0:14
Hello, and thank you very much for listening to this episode of The Billy Newman photo podcast. I wanted to talk to you for a couple seconds today about the new igtv and the new HGTV app that’s Instagram television, I suppose I suppose you break it out to all of that. But it’s kind of it’s a trip. It’s, it’s weird. I’m not used to it yet. It’s vertical video first. I know Snapchat did that. I know stories does that. But this is sort of calling it out a little bit to edit video to produce a video in this vertical format, sort of naming itself as a competitor to YouTube at the moment. But I’m sort of interested to see how that plays out. I think it’s maybe a little bit more of a competitor to a snapchat system, it seems like that or it seems like or maybe even Patreon, it seems like it’s trying to pull creators and, and sort of insert some monetization system that you can throw in there. But I’m interested to see how it all turned out. I’ve been trying to mess around with it. I’m always excited for new systems of you know, kind of publishing content and media. And so I was trying to use my Instagram account at Billy Newman, if you’re interested to put up a handful of vertical videos that I’m editing, editing together. So what I’ve been doing is I’ve been throwing it together and Final Cut, and I made a special project or let’s see, I went to Final Cut new project. And then I set the pixel layout to custom. So instead of 1920 by 1080, you know, a horizontal layout of an HD video, I went in and I set it to custom and I made it 1080 to 1920, which throws that to an HD vertical video. And so once I did that the frame of the video is vertical. Now what I did is I had all these horizontal videos that I had in my browser, I dropped those onto the the project timeline, and it shows them what would that be there’s pillar box and sandbox are crap title box, I don’t know what it is it’s like title box or so it was you know, just big things over the top. But again, it’s vertical with like a little band in the middle of it. So what I have to do is you have to, you have to, you have to conform that video, you have to transform it, stretch it out, so that it fills the screen in a way. So there’s you use a transform tool, you stretch the video out by holding the Command key so that it scales the video out nicely. And then it shows it vertically, then you have to clip it and orient it so that so that kind of like pan and scan back in the 50s. You know, when they’re trying to transition widescreen movies to TV, you had a pan and scan. And so that means you have to reorient that the position of focus on the subject, right. So that makes sense. So once I switch it to vertical video, it pans out the subject of the video that I was pointed out in a way, let’s say there was something really cool in the left hand corner of the video and something really cool on the right hand corner of the video. And that was the frame that you had well now, in this vertical video just showing you nothing that’s in the center of it, it’s not showing you the cool thing on the right or the left. So you have to choose, you have to get to clip it, you know, cut it with the blade, and then you have to transform what’s shown to one of those cool points of interest that you were shown in the video. And then you have to kind of manipulate a clip clip around it a little bit. It’s still sort of a clergy thing. But it was fun to get through. I made a couple of clips of videos and stuff. I made a clip of a podcast and threw it up there. There’s like a 10 minute limit right now. And then I think there’s about maybe a 60 minute limit. Once you’re over, say like 10,000 followers and you have a business account. I don’t know. That’s the thing. Not is anybody really using Instagram to watch 60 minutes of video? Maybe not me. But here’s the thing I’ve learned is I underestimate how much people are on Instagram, it turns out, so maybe that’s why Instagram has enough data to try and put together a whole app as a vision to compete with YouTube and Snapchat. Something kind of interesting, but definitely check out some Instagram TV, bits and pieces. I guess there’s cons out there probably something cool to see.
4:10
You can see more of my work at Billy Newman photo comm you can check out some of my photo books on Amazon. I think you can look at Billy Newman under the authors section there and see some of the photo books on film on the desert, on surrealism on camping, and cool stuff over there. But this week, I want to talk about some of the past truck travel stuff that we’ve done, and I think you’re the guy who’s inspired me to get a truck at first man I got a truck gotta have a truck. Strangely, though, most most of my road trip travel has been a Camry, the old Camry man.
4:52
But that camera was legendary.
4:54
It was legit. It was absolutely legendary. But for today’s episode, we’re thinking about doing what’s kind of great Come down a couple of stories in the past we had about doing some overland stuff some overland, like travel. If you can call it overland I don’t know that’s like a heavy word. I think that’s a modern word, right? Like this term. I’ve seen that around like overland where people have seen a lot of that. Yeah, it seems to be kind of the trendy sort of rich guy word to say for Whelan. Go Madden. Landrover Madden, or for four wheel or something. You take that overlanding overland
5:29
excursion?
5:30
Oh yeah, it’s always that but i think that’s kind of a funny part of it. But I see like a ton of that stuff I got into that, like, I got into that stuff back in 2011. Like the overland travel Have you ever seen like the magazine overland journal?
5:42
Is that inactive?
5:45
I think so. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s like sort of a niche. It’s a niche category. Like this whole thing so it’s where it’s like that thing you’d never find it unless you looked for it. But it’s kind of it’s interesting. There’s tons of stuff out there like that but that’s one of the first ones that I ran into. And that’s that’s when I had like the Camry and I was back in college and stuff and you know, that’s when I first really wanted to get because I couldn’t get a Landrover from the 70s I really wanted to get like a roof rack and a top box i was i was like set on that because if I could get that that was like that was like my that was my version of making like a Camry into an overland vehicle you know because I was like yeah I’m gonna get into this but I’m 20 and I’ve got 138 bucks so
6:28
with that Yeah, but that
6:31
was a part of it so yeah, I remember setting up like like setting up the car that the roof the roof top or the top box you know man those are those are like super handy like and that was great on the on the camera when I had it but that was all kind of
6:43
what was yours you had like that that top box?
6:46
Yeah, it was a I forget what it is now I think there was like the excursion that I had at a time and then there was like the summit model that
6:55
we didn’t have the overland model didn’t I missed
6:57
out on both of these were like oh man they were like you know I don’t know the early 90s maybe late night early mid 90s or something that’s like when the plastic was produced that’s when that thing was called New and now it was just sitting on my my equally old aged car gonna go around and grab those things hold their value like crazy I picked mine up both of mine I think now three of them in total I picked three of those top boxes up oh on Craigslist was for different cars and stuff I got a little fat one for the for the Camry I’ve had one for the truck and we got one from Marina CRV or what do you say the truck I mean the old foreigner let’s get into that later too but that long one on the old foreigners I bought like a few of them and I always bought them on us like on Craigslist or something right like yeah and it’s like new they’re like five or 600 bucks to get into this yeah man yeah it’s yeah super frustrating so even when they’re used they’re they’re still floating in like for good ones or for like stuff from the 2000s that’s sort of the more modern clamping systems or you know when they actually made it they made it better you know where you can put it on take it on and off your car without putting together like a bunch of plates brackets made out to spend the whole afternoon doing yeah it’s great because he would always like you know mess up you get stuck in some situation like that when you like I think one time we had to move we’d like it was you and I Robert and Scott and we had to like move that that that top box we’re talking about to the oh yeah to the raft right and we were going on that snowboard trip so we had to like pack we had to put it on and like put like a bunch of snowboards on or something. And it was just like it was just like snow and slash and it’s kind of raining you got like you don’t even have a headlamp you’ve just got like a light kind of crimped on your shoulder and neck. As you’re kind of trying to twist this wing that back and forth to make sure that this thing’s tight in the right spot. It was such a pain man, it was so awful. So after that they made like more simple clamp systems that work better. But man those are like still like 300 250 like the low end range. Like the sticker like us. Yeah, the stuff broken. I just sold one for like, 85 that was that like a big chunk missing out of it? Oh, geez. Yeah, it’s not Yeah, it’s like it’s a goal. At least I don’t know, it seems like in Eugene May. In Southern Oregon, it was a lot harder. I think I had one and never sold. But it seemed like in Eugene and in Corvallis and Portland, or like, you know, where that that string of
9:23
Subarus and
9:24
topsoccer? Yeah, right?
9:27
exists
9:28
all those, all those overlanders out there. But that was my foray into into understanding what overlanding was because I was interested in like that overland journal. So I’d like watch or watch the stuff that was coming out in that and it was just really all stuff, all equipment that was unattainable. But you look at like the sweet trucks. And there’s so many cool, like land or the land that the Toyota Land Cruisers, but they now have this set that they never built in America. Have you seen those? Oh, yeah, they’re awesome. They’re so cool. Yeah, like all the other ones. Australia got and like South Africa. Those are like the coolest cars ever like
10:05
you see all over out there. Yeah, they’re so great. I would love to have Yeah, just this sweet diesel
10:10
left hand drive. Right hand drive. Like Yeah, Land Cruiser track. Like there’s the the Toyota trooper, if anybody’s listening and they Google that it’s like this, this crazy truck that they made for the military that Toyota made for the military. That’s like a troop carrier. But it’s a Land Cruiser, but it’s just got like a long back end. And it’s kind of squared off so you can you can fit two benches in there to load 12 guys, or whatever, whatever. psyllium is in the back, but it just looks like Oh, man, that’d be the coolest like camper. Yeah, you take that thing. It’s like, so like the F j 40. See, like the old ones that look like the the Willys Jeep, have you seen that? Oh, yeah. That and that was kind of like the, one of the Jeep models that they look Yeah, Toyota’s Japanese right. Yeah, of course they are. But I don’t know where else they they sold like their equipment to for like military use. But it seemed like the F j and the Land Cruiser line is used like with them as a military vehicle all over the world. Have you seen that? Like, it’s the I’m not really familiar with that? No, we’re not like a military vehicle. But like, like, we have a jeep. And then we have a tank but we have the jeep. Like they have they have the Toyota they have a Land Cruiser. Or like a Ilex, right, like your old truck. Your old pickup truck. Yeah, okay,
11:29
I know what you’re talking about. Yeah, that old pickup truck. Yes. Our 1980 it was the best talking about my old one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so but it won’t get rid of it. I still have
11:40
the coolest truck, but I remember learning about like, Oh, it was just weird when I found out like about American nations. Were in america that’s called a pickup. Like that’s, that’s a pickup truck. But out of the country. The truck is called a Hi Alex. I’d seen that. Yeah, the international version. The International name for the pickup was the Toyota Hilux. And it’s like, it’s got that like emblem in it. Yeah. So they’d sell these Toyota pickup trucks like Saudi Arabia or like ISIS, man, like okay, so yeah, like all the ice like the footage from ISIS. That’s like, why are they all in these like us Toyota’s bassinet across this section of Syria? It’s because the military had bought Toyota’s as helixes like new ones they’re like it’s just like I’m sweet Tacoma or something you know it’s just like rigged up to ride around out in the desert it’s probably a great shock for it but that’s
12:33
why we should be ISIS is to get all
12:36
we need all those sweet Toyota’s back now it was a big land that was like a gag in the news for a while because like all the footage from from whatever was going on which show these people but they were like next to these like old like old pickups like yours with with a with like a gun mounted mounted in the back like
12:57
that yeah
13:00
but yeah you think about all that all that crazy stuff that I think that was like the highlight stuff that Toyota was like for runners out of the country they’re called serfs. Really yeah way cooler name to kind of call a foreigner a serf I’m not gonna
13:15
run it it’s kind of redundant like I mean no matter what you have it’s got
13:18
Yeah, it’s like well, I mean we expected it would it would have four wheels or big truck I guess it should have four wheel drive or whatever whatever it’s insinuating but but yeah, out of the country was called the surf I’ve seen a few of them pass by like you’d see him out there you’d be driving around and people are real proud of it especially in the overland scene or that like that backward CMM people get real proud of their their rigs that they have set up but but we saw one that was like this diesel surf that this guy had imported I don’t know what the rules are on that either.
13:49
Yeah,
13:50
it’s I think if the if the guy’s a US citizen, I think it couldn’t happen but I think if you’re in Canada, you can you can have you can have one registered and then drive it into the united states i think is where we see a lot of those vehicles.
14:04
Well we need to make some buddies in Canada
14:07
if we need that man I need I need a diesel 90s foreigner I don’t know like
14:13
commuting
14:16
Have you seen like the Mitsubishi Delica that’s another that’s another sought after it yeah
14:22
it’s low in my mind here
14:24
yeah that MIT’s it’s a it’s another kind of wasn’t that wasn’t built in the United States right but it’s for well it’s become really popular and like that van life van life culture where people you know, like I pretty much like what we were doing the Camry six years ago, but but finding it relatively decently and they get like a van. And like it’s become really popular to get this Mitsubishi Delica. They made it through the 80s. It was sort of a competitor to the to the Volkswagen line of vans that were out at that time that were kind of camping focused, but it was cool. The Delica was cool because it was a diesel van but it was four wheel Drive is I get this it was time when like Mitsubishi was just making a bunch of four wheel drive stuff probably like the Colt VISTA that was yeah
15:07
that’s exactly what was just you don’t know what to call this is you’re listening to this podcast go go look it up and that was that was your first car Billy
15:17
oh man it was the best car it was the best it was the best car it was the worst guy but it was really though it was the worst car
15:25
there I bet if you had that now and just put a little bit of money into it somebody yeah somebody would pick that up yeah in the Portland area
15:33
I put some studded tires on that a roof rat oh yeah an LED bar.
15:38
You want to talk about led bar CV
15:45
yeah man you remember that hatchback if you could fit 10 people in that car I think eight people I think I
15:51
did I don’t think that’s what they approved it for.
15:55
No I just where it was I think it was seven people
15:58
it was what it was like rated for
16:01
seven Yeah, it was it was three roses seats Robert in a compact soccer
16:06
balls are driving around in 1983
16:09
yeah it was It’s nuts yeah there was the front two seats the back two seats that were like bucket seats to and then behind that there was another bench seat for three so you had 1234567 man Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. What a silly
16:27
hey it wasn’t aesthetically great but it was uh you know economy friendly that’s that’s for sure.
16:38
The worst guy so not not an overland vehicle there I guess you could say and even still like man it was had like 14 inch tires so yeah no clearance to get over anything What have you
16:50
you made it You made it happen with the camera though? I yeah,
16:53
I did man and I was gonna mention that too because that I had a couple experiences in the Camry you’ve always had a truck I guess outside of like the short time you had you had a sedan for to commute and stuff but you had like had I rigged that could get some places which I always appreciated and I really noticed running into a few limitations when I was in the Camry. I wanted to talk about those It was great with the Camry because he really benefit from the gas mileage which man I would say yeah because I mean the most of a road trip in some ways like is highway miles you know you’re out you got to drive from here oh yeah Wyoming so yeah put a lot of distance in between you and where you’re going yeah it man it worked great having kind of a light easy car to like just bomb out to somewhere that works really well. So I appreciated some of those parts but man we ran into a few spots where we just couldn’t get through and the one of the most upsetting ones to me was the sailing stones have you heard of those before?
17:49
Is that in Utah
17:50
it’s in it’s in the southwest it’s it’s Near Death Valley in California and the sailing stones is a really cool spot it was in Death Valley it’s like it’s in the park area but the park area is just so immense but it’s it’s all desolate almost nothing out there you know but you take this road it cuts back for a really long way and man we were on that gravel road for ever going back there you have to go it’s it’s the kind of deep wilderness you would almost call it but it’s like deep in desolate country out there it’s sort of well traveled because there’s there’s people kind of moving in and out of the park system. But we were traveling there in December I think you know when we were moving moving that direction, like early December of 2012, I think is when we were there and when we were we were driving up just just on the gravel road as it was it said it was a it was a gravel road the whole way there. And this part of it, it just kind of went up a little bit of a grade you know just the hill the slope of the road just kind of went up maybe 1215 feet or so and then kind of rounded off leveled off and then kept going it seemed like almost nothing at all. But my car was knee high centering on it basically like you could feel like you could feel like the body like start scraping because the roll off of it was like it was just it was deeper than than my car like the angle the car and the clearance I could handle I like I couldn’t get there and I’d wanted to go there all my life. Oh so frustrated. We were like two miles or so I was like two three miles or something like well, we didn’t know that because you’re like in backwoods stuff and it’s like, like I’m not gonna park there and hike it or something.
19:24
Yeah, and then somebody else rolls up in a vehicle that can handle it. This Camry parked in the middle of the road
19:30
there was a there was like a group of kids or like teenagers on little dirt bikes like little to hundreds and they were just like bouncing they just zoomed right past us. They sound like a little, a little bike. And they cruise. Right. It was nothing but yeah, it’s it was not it was you would it would be totally everything could get over that except for my cars, except the camera. So yeah, no overland that day is what it is what it was, but that’s story really is what ended up inspiring me to sell that Camry that winter. And then like come back in and get a foreigner like when I got that that 89 foreigner that I
20:11
thought was good that was a good truck I liked that route is a good track.
20:15
I bet it was a better truck earlier but man it was a great truck for me and I really had a great time doing stuff with it was super fun. Like Yeah, do more candy seven that was really cool. But that that was the first time that I had like that truck clearance you know?
20:27
Yeah, it means just like a whole new world of opportunities opened up to you when you when you have that clearance. It’s like okay, and you got four wheel drive so you can get a little more daring with where you’re going. And even with that though, I found that now with my current truck, I don’t have the winch on it yet. And and even that kind of dictates to what I will and will not do up in the hills. Especially if there’s not another rig with me. Sure. Yeah. I really enjoyed having that. That kind of that lifeline. And that security, I guess and having that winch that I can get out of trouble if I really got myself into it.
21:10
I think it’s pretty interesting. Yeah, I’ve never had I haven’t had a rig with a winch on it. But I really liked that you always did. That was cool. I don’t think we’ve ever used it together when we were
21:19
out. I’ve used it on Tyler. Oh yeah.
21:22
Yeah. Pull him out of that sandbank. Is that what it was?
21:24
Yeah. I use it on a couple times. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You just get into a rough spot you got a tree or something you can tether off of and get yourself out of it. But
21:38
I think that’s pretty cool. I remember you telling me a little bit about that in the past and it seems like it’d be pretty necessary if you wanted to do something more serious or more long term if you’re doing like an overland trip or if you’re doing some some trucks yes four by four stuff
21:53
well that’s not a big like you know off road or it’s you know, but it’s well I mean off road in the sense of like let’s go mud and rock climbing right yeah not I’m not that but I do like trying to get into places where typically the you know, the road kind of ends or you know, somebody hasn’t been back then 30 years and there’s still roadway going I think it’s really explore
22:17
Yeah, I really like that part of it I really like getting to those different areas and you really get to get through so much more land you know, that way it’s I found it to be really cool.
22:26
You do especially Oregon in the wintertime you know this area gets so much rain and stuff. It’s hard to like you know when you after the winter you get to the end of the road you know, back back this is I don’t want to beg begging I want to stay in the rig as long as I can. Yeah,
22:45
yeah, it’s it’s definitely that’s a huge part of it for me too. And I care about Well yeah, you should tell me about Tell me about your pickup truck your first one that you got in high school did you that was like an ad with a straight axle right?
23:00
It was a 1980 straight axle Toyota four by four long and that was a great truck it still has a great track it’s currently sitting under a canopy right now it hasn’t run in three or four years but no, I love that truck man I drove that from the time I was 15 years until oh four years ago
23:20
yeah I mean that was that was a blast i was i was the coolest drug
23:23
Yeah no, I have always loved that truck and that truck would go anywhere I mean the really the only reason I got out of it was just I needed something more reliable yeah fact it’s last trip was the trip that amber and I took down to Joshua Tree and I put like you know like 4000 miles on it
23:42
No way I remember that trip that was yeah that was pretty cool man.
23:47
Yeah and so that was a great trip to take it out on the harsh reality was you know at the time gas in California was around $5 a gallon is yeah insane I was getting about 12 miles a gallon and you know that was rough you know it didn’t have AC you know that’s just little stuff like people didn’t get along with that forever but
24:10
now it makes me different so I’ve learned a little bit too I mean like like what we both learned a little bit in this last year like having a newer truck. It just solves a lot of those stresses about transportation man
24:21
well it does and that’s the thing is when you’re committing to a trip like that you need to know that it’s gonna be reliable it’s been a huge part you need to know it’s gonna start back up when you’re ready to go yeah 2000 miles away from home
24:35
I kill the battery I
24:36
gotta Oh my truck or so. Yeah. And the battery is not the proper Oh, no. Yeah, like, it’s just like, Oh, you know, yeah, my transmission went out or like, you know, blew a head gasket or something. You know, I mean, that truck when I took it, it had over 400,000 miles on it. And, and so you’re just going Wow, this is awesome. But really I just need to make sure I get it home yeah you know that that’s what it came down to.
25:05
Yeah I feel like sometimes it’s like driving a classic car around doesn’t run as well it’s maybe basil
25:12
yeah yeah yeah and then I got out from that I bought myself a little 93 I guess it was that’s our five Toyota v six pickup with little extended cab I liked having the extra room that was a great little pickup to have that nice canopy with the roof racks on it I really enjoyed that.
25:37
Yeah, I like that to see
25:39
it go Yeah, it
25:41
was too bad it’s too soon you know but too soon but I understand to think that Daddy’s gonna move on or you know it’s good he use it you
25:51
can see it around town every now and then Nice. Yeah, but but yeah and so since I’ve gotten into a full size track which I I just wonder why I didn’t do so much earlier. Oh yeah. You know it’s just just having the room the reliability you know just all the difference in the world
26:13
Yeah, I think so too. I was in your track like we were on when we were on that last Japanese podcast out of it yeah super clean like a dig been in there it’s cool
26:22
Yeah, it’s uh it’s far more comfortable than it used to be you know cramming into the little single cab and yeah manual transmission and trying to
26:32
remember that first trip we did in your in your old trailer your your yeah cap. When we were what 16 are you going to camp up at Union Creek?
26:41
Yeah.
26:42
What is like what is that? I’ve been I guess it’s Central Oregon. I don’t know what do you call that? I don’t know what you would call that Crater Lake Area Yeah, it’s not really central National Forest
26:55
almost right yeah, it’s
26:57
row River National Forest because it’s the rug that runs through that is yeah yeah, I think yeah, it’s that that area up there man that was such a cool trip and add a great type of minute like you’re saying that we just there was like the three of us right? Yeah, just packed in tight. Yeah. And I was the one that had a ride bitch in the center. Throwing the third gear then it was it four years. Three years.
27:22
Yeah, it was four I ended up putting the five speed transmission. I remember that at the end. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was just that for speed you know, you get it out. It was great in town stuff. Then he gets onto the freeway and you’re just tapped out at like 65 and just, you know, semis are trying to pass you
27:43
to go that fast I guess. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that was a sweet track though. Man. I really had a good time in that but I remember that back in high school it was fun like making that road trip up to go camping thrown everything in the back. And everybody’s just crammed crammed into the bench seat. Just now used to work I guess. But yes, a little little more luxurious. Now with the with the space I suppose.
28:10
You can check out more information at Billy Newman photo comm you can go to Billy Newman photo comm forward slash support. If you want to help me out and participate in the value for value model that we’re running this podcast with. If you receive some value out of some of the stuff that I was talking about, you’re welcome to help me out and send some value my way through the portal at Billy Newman photo comm forward slash support, you can also find more information there about Patreon and the way that I use it if you’re interested or feel more comfortable using Patreon that’s patreon.com forward slash Billy Newman photo. I’ve been I’ve been really interested in the Alexa. Well, I guess just the Alexa platform and then some of the stuff that I might be able to do trying to produce flash briefings for the the echo system. I think there’s a there’s a an echo behind me that just woke up when I said that. But using echo to develop a flash briefing, I think is kind of an interesting way to produce some audio content, I think that’s something that I might be able to do in an easy way. Or you know, I have a lot of the equipment and in a higher order working way that maybe a lot of people do. So there’s an opportunity for me to just make a whole rundown of different themes of content that I need to produce for the channel. And then there’s probably be a significant amount of attraction that I could get with with trying to put something out there early on. You know, I wonder if you guys think about this, right? Then think about, you know, a little silly ways to make money and I never actually do any of them. So I’m on the right path, I suppose. But I was thinking about while I was looking at the Amazon Alexa developer portal. I was going through there today and there’s a lot that you can get into and especially if you’re like a skilled developer, you have you have Background and some of the programming languages, languages that, that you can use in the command line that Amazon has available for you, there’s, there’s really a lot that you can do especially a lot that you can do outside of even the echo platform. So I’m sure that there’s, you know, there’s just like an endless amount of virtualizations that you can do, once you get involved with that. But for the Alexa platform, it’s kinda interesting what I was trying to do. And you know, since I don’t really have like a ton of coding Well, I don’t, because I don’t have a ton of coding skill, I’m most interested in trying to put together some of the flash briefing systems, which really seems like you just you kind of go through the system one time, which was almost really just filling out a form if you haven’t done it before, but beyond that many people have. But if you haven’t developed a flash briefing, it was really just like filling out a form, it wasn’t really significant, or there was no code, there was no open a command line or build a file or have any kind of assets available for something in advance of, you know, what you would need to develop, there really isn’t any of that it’s just on, you know, on the website, or wherever I’m developing my feed there’s has to be like a handful of stipulations met but but that’s not really much more than what you’d have for any other kind of, you know, system where you’re hosting and processing and serving as an audio feed. And for my circumstances, and not collecting any information or any payment processing. So I think it’s a lot simpler, just kind of having the audio feed from RSS go into something that’s, you know, pre selected to serve that from the alexus system. And that’s kind of an interesting method of using it, I don’t use the flash briefing system really, as much as I thought I would, I guess kind of day to day, it’s because maybe it’s like the type of content that I seem to be able to run into, it’s just sort of a lot of street stuff from Wall Street Journal. And it doesn’t really seem to be very relevant, or really, truly what like the headline news would be, if I really needed to hear something in audio this hour, would it be that I don’t really know. So it doesn’t quite seem like it. But that’s probably some kind of level of content issue I’m going to run into also, and maybe this is just my personal situation of it, maybe not being like a time kind of thing that that I’m able to do. But But what I’m interested in trying to do, I guess is take advantage of all the people that might be trying to use their echo system a little bit more. And yeah, kind of participate in that and try and be one of the voices that is served on the echo system, I was impressed A while back when we were doing some testing with the Alexa platform. And when we were we’re checking out with like the, we’re putting together an astronomy based, like skywatching Alexa flash briefing, and it was kind of interesting, trying to put that together. I liked it a lot. See that goes, Alexa stop. So when I was trying to put together this flash briefings, it was interesting to see the real spike in traffic that was there. And so you know, I don’t really have a draw of traffic as it is at all. I’m not sure if it was all just spam or some kind of weird artificial server track traffic I was getting once I submitted it to Amazon, but there was hundreds of,
33:12
I don’t know markers of activity on that on that file. And that feed, it was far more like multiples of anything that I had seen from from the iTunes podcast system in in my time setting up podcasts and the time passed. So it was interesting to see just that kind of like rush in of things or ask people or I guess, I guess echo systems that have queued or triggered the feed that I had. So it was kind of interesting, seeing some of the analytics behind that. But that’s a part of what makes me want to get into this type of content a lot more. The other part is that I’m trying to get more into podcasting, I have some other some other kind of podcasting, things that I have to be working on in the next couple of weeks and months. And so I’m really trying to get into kind of the audio side of stuff and do a little bit more of the audio editing. And, you know, I’ve been thinking about it a little bit too, in terms of, I guess, I don’t know what you produce in a podcast. I think this is fine, fine. And this probably fulfills a lot of the stuff that I would listen to a podcast for. And you know, so yeah, thanks, guys. Thanks for listening to this. I understand. I get it. But to talk to that point, I guess a little bit of what I mean is that you need a podcast to be useful you want some of the information that you’re here for a bit of time to be to be useful or to be you know, entertaining or somewhat informative or some kind of level of a hang. I don’t know that’s what I listen to podcast for I guess we’re not really like hyper, hyper informational, or, you know, there’s not like a ton of specific data points to get to a lot I’ve learned a lot you know, it’s a type of communication platform that seems to service my learning a lot better than whatever type of articulation seems to happen more clearly in an audio book that’s a little bit harder for me to wrap into than what it is with the more natural flow pause and then pacing of a conversation Or just have a person, you know, talking or trying to try to talk off the top of their head. I guess like professors to do that, or you know, teachers would do that when someone’s lecturing, which I hope this is not quite a lecture. I have nothing to teach you or nothing. There’s nothing you can learn from me. That’s probably that’s probably the truth. I’d try though. But, but yeah, I guess for for photo stuff that’s going on? Well, I don’t know. What was it talking about? That was Alexis stuff, right? I haven’t even gotten the photo stuff. For the Alexa stuff. What I’ve done is I’ve produced a billy Newman photo flash briefing to go on to the Amazon Echo platform, watching my words more carefully now. And I’m also trying to put together some of the other podcasts ideas that I’d had in the past something around media and technology I’m trying to put something together around astronomy and sky watching I’m trying to put something together to there also. And I’m also trying to figure out some stuff around I guess photography specifically and then outdoor camping travel adventure stuff specifically so I’m gonna try and find some names that that might be useful for that kind of thing. And I’m going to see if if I could try and put that together but but yeah, be kind of fun. I’m I’m looking forward to trying to try and get some traction on building out some content on the Alexa platform stuff. Thanks a lot for checking out this episode of The Billy Newman photo podcast. Hope you guys check out some stuff on Billy Newman photo.com a few new things up there some stuff on the homepage, some good links to other other outbound sources, some links to books and links to some podcasts like this a blog posts are pretty cool. Yeah, check it out at Billy numina photo deco. Thanks for listening to this episode and the back end like your next