Be passionate and do not expect immediate success
Our interview with Chase Charaba
This week we chat to Chase all about photography and what it’s like being a youtuber.
Chase is an aspiring youtuber who is also a keen photographer and is big on pursuing his passions. You can see an example of one of his videos below where he went snow shoeing in Winter between 2016 and 2017.
So let’s jump straight into it!
Well, let me start by thanking you for this opportunity. I know that you guys are pretty much just starting out and I’m excited to see where Fieldwork goes! It feels weird being at this end of an interview. I’m so used to being the one asking the questions, having spent three years on my high school newspaper and two years working for my college newspaper, including editor-in-chief.
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What inspired you to start recording parts of your life? was there a youtuber in particular?
You know, that’s a very interesting question to try to answer. I’ve always had a creative mindset going back to when I was in fourth grade. That year, the class was given a fiction writing and illustration assignment. Before that point in time, school had only taught us expository writing. We didn’t spend much time being creative and writing fiction. So, it was completing this fourth-grade writing assignment that I discovered my passion for fiction writing. I wrote a few short stories that year and shared them with the class, and then in fifth grade I tried to write a novel. That ended up being 60 pages and I kept going with a sequel in sixth grade and so on.
I realized that I was interested in art at a young age. It was always writing and drawing until recently though. I’d say my high school newspaper really introduced me to photography and graphic design, since I had to design and layout pages of the print newspaper. I learned the basics of a DSLR camera and Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, so that’s really the starting point. I now had some basic understanding of cameras and editing, and with my passion for writing and telling stories YouTube seemed possible.
My brother Justin and I planned to start a YouTube channel in 2014 but it never happened. The plan was to make funny skits such as “The Hunt for the Emo,” and build an audience for our 2015 Hawaii trip. Well by the time of the trip, we still didn’t have a channel. It was that summer that we started Freak Shack Entertainment (later just Freak Shack) as a channel. At the same time, I started watching BFvsGF/PrankvsPrank on YouTube, which led me to other great creators like Casey Neistat in late 2015. That’s when I realized I wanted to vlog and not do challenge videos or anything like that. Justin left the channel in 2016 and I rebranded Freak Shack as my own channel and just named it after me, Chase Charaba.
Since then the work of Sawyer Hartman, Giovanni Montalvo, Dan King, and other filmmakers have kept me going. That’s really when views became less important to me than improvement in my work every time that I upload a video.
The improvement is what keeps me going now.
Do you have any advice for people looking to get involved in creative mediums such as youtube and photography?
Don’t wait. Don’t wait for a better time to start uploading videos or posting photos to Instagram. Start right now. There won’t be a better time and you’ll just regret having not started earlier. I wish we had started the channel in 2014 like we wanted to because there was less competition then. Plus, I just wonder what I’d be able to do now if I had started practicing earlier. I had a lot more free time back then.
Really, I’d just encourage anyone hoping to make YouTube videos to follow their passion.
Don’t let others tell you it isn’t possible or that you aren’t good enough. You are. The earlier you start and the more you practice your skills, the better you’ll become at it.
I don’t know if there’s a correct way to do YouTube or Instagram or whatever you choose. Make mistakes and learn from them. Figure out why your videos aren’t getting views or your photos aren’t getting likes. Is it the quality, or is it the SEO, your tags and descriptions? Don’t be afraid to start. Just jump in and see where you end up.
My last piece of advice, coming from someone who hasn’t seen huge success on either platform, is to not expect immediate success.
It can take a while to build your brand. Don’t give up when you aren’t getting views or subscribers in the first month. It could take years, but if you’re working hard toward your goal and you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it will be worth it.
We love gear, what kind of stuff do you take your photos with on instagram?
When I first started out with my current profile on Instagram, which was really spring 2016, I shot my photos with my dad’s Nikon D5100 on auto. By that summer, I was shooting in manual and I was using my iPhone 6s Plus occasionally.
I’m currently using a Canon 80D for almost all my photos and videos.
For the Canon I have an 18–135mm kit lens and a 10–22mm USM lens and I’m looking to get another lens eventually. I also just purchased a GoPro Hero5 Black that will be used for videos and possibly a few photos here and there.
I don’t have a whole lot of camera gear yet, but someday I will.
Where are the top 3 places you want to visit in the near future?
One of the places that’s been on my bucket list is Glacier National Park in Montana. I’m going there for a few days this August and I’m so stoked. I’ve never been to Montana, so it should be a fun experience. We’re renting a log cabin and we plan on doing a few large hikes during the day and just hang out at the cabin and watch the stars and stuff at night.
Another place that I really want to visit soon is Banff National Park in Canada. It just looks so amazing and majestic. I know that Mount Rainier is beautiful and all, but there’s something about Banff that’s really calling me. That probably won’t happen for a few years, but I’ll get there someday.
My third place would be Hawaii. I did the whole Big Island thing in 2015 for graduation and it was an awesome time. Justin really wants to go to Kauai next time and hopefully that’s soon!
We love it when people take the time to chat to us and share their thoughts with us here at FIELDWORK. Hope everyone has enjoyed hearing from Chase.
