At the Facebook Developers Conference this year (2016), something pretty significant was announced. Facebook for the first time was opening up the APIs for its incredibly popular Facebook Live Video to work on cameras besides our mobile phones. As a photographer and photo educator, this was pretty big news as the idea of live streaming from my desktop to Facebook has been on my mind for a while! After a little digging and some help from a friend and colleague (Brian Matiash), it was quickly apparent that I had all the tools I needed, including having a verified Facebook Page.
Fast forward to yesterday and for the first time I was able to stream both a live photo editing session and an extensive Question & Answer series with my 115,000 followers on Facebook (Colby Brown Photography). So far the response has been incredible with thousands of people watching live and the video itself reaching over 100k people in the first few hours it was up on my stream. Needless to say, you can count on many more of these moving forward.
The image that I edited was from the Jokulsarlon region of South Iceland, taken last year. In editing this image I used Adobe Lightroom & Photoshop as well as Color Efex Pro 4, part of the Nik Collection by Google, which is now 100% FREE. Enjoy the following Before & After versions of the photo.
Sony a7R | Sony 16-35 f/4 fe
ISO 80 | f/16 | .6 Seconds
Aside from the full 1hr long photo editing session where I not only edited this image live but explained what I was doing and why, I also answered a ton of questions from those fortunate enough to be their live. I talked about my start as a photographer, which artists inspire me, photography filters and the business side of the industry to name a few. This video is long and I got cut off by Facebook at the end, but I hope you enjoy it!
*fast forward to the 2:00 mark to start the video
If you enjoyed this video and you want to see more, be sure to follow Colby Brown Photography on Facebook and subscribe to my Facebook Live Notifications. In the future, I will not only do more live editing sessions but offer prize giveaways, give presentations and even review cameras and lenses. More is on the way!
If you have any questions about Facebook Live or the image I edited, please feel free to leave them in the comments below!
