Travelling St. Clair Avenue West In Toronto
For the past year, the goal was getting to 1,000 subscribers at the YouTube Channel. YT cut us off their Partner Program until that number was reached. As far as their other requirement for watch time, we were already blowing it out of the water.
When that goal was reached a few weeks ago, suddenly the focus needed to shift. It wasn’t all about getting the subscribers anymore, although that still remains a priority. We could now make money and, for the sake of continuing to create content, we had to figure out how to make more.
I’ve created what I’ve thought were beautiful videos, filled with breath-taking natural scenes. Apparently, those who visit YouTube don’t much care about these. No, where I’ve found success is with simple driving tour videos taken with a dash-mounted GoPro. There still is a bit of creativity involved as you have to come up with routes that flow, show the sights and don’t backtrack.
Problem is, you need time and fuel to do these videos. And, the more you do, the further away you have to go. I’ve already done Toronto but had this idea about individual street tours. Actually, I got the idea after publishing a time lapse journey up Yonge Street from Queen’s Quay to Newmarket (See it here: Yonge Street Time Lapse. I had complaints that some viewers would much rather see the journey in real time and not sped up.
So, on a cold February Saturday, in between snow storms, I set out for Toronto to capture a video or two. Actually, the plan was for several videos but I was missing a power cord and had to run the camera solely off battery. This forces you to use time very wisely.
The first of two videos captured was this driving tour of St. Clair Avenue West. The second was of the Danforth from Castle Frank to Kingston Road.
This is not the road to travel on when time is not on your side. However, for our purposes, it was not a problem. The video below shows the driving tour probably cut in half by cutting out all the time spent sitting at a red light.
As for entertaining the kids in the back seat, these ‘Red Rockets’ did the trick. The streetcar action is heavy down the centre of St. Clair and kids from a small town outside of Toronto never seem to bore of it.
Photo Details
- f/5.6
- 1/2000th of a second
- ISO-2500
A much, much higher ISO than I care to photograph with. I prefer to stick at ISO-100 but while driving in the car, I switch to the pre-programmed ‘Sports’ setting because I obviously don’t have time to do adjustments. But, the photo came out without much graininess or noise so it all worked out.
Yes, I took the photo while driving. Not with my cell phone but with my DSLR. And, not while in motion but while firmly stopped at a red light.
St. Clair Avenue West Driving Tour Video
The video below was taken on the same day as the image above. This is a driving tour of St. Clair Avenue West, going eastbound from Scarlett Road to Yonge Street.
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Pic Of The Day 