Aaaaand Welcome... - and Episode 59 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

One of the trickiest things about doing a live podcast is being ready at exactly the time you go live.

When we see someone appear live on our screen (or even in person), unless there are some serious giveaway signs, we have no idea what they have been up to in the past days, hours, or even minutes or seconds just before they came into view.

It seems no matter how well prepared I think I'm going to be, something nearly always trips me up in the last moments, and I'm still flustered and panicking at the point I look into the camera and say, "And welcome to Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres, Episode..."

Very occasionally I've managed to start with "Welcome...", but the "AND welcome..." is a sign that I'm feeling this is not exactly the start of the podcast – I've just been through yet another unexpected something and now I have to transition all my attention to the fact there are people staring at their screens expecting me to start talking to them.

I will have been frantically dealing with whatever it was this week causing me to stumble, while the countdown timer was getting closer to zero, AND now I need to welcome people to the podcast and let them know what's coming up!

So why don't I just give myself more time and be ready much earlier?

Part of the problem is if I have everything set up, double checked and ready to go half an hour before, then the next 30 minutes is like sitting in a dentist's waiting room in nervous anticipation.

Once I'm a few minutes into the podcast, usually the nerves have settled and I'm fine for the rest of it, but the longer I'm sitting around waiting for it to be begin, the worse my fears become. So I'm always trying to find that balance between being prepared in advance, and leaving it as late as I can before that intense shot of performance anxiety kicks in.

However, this week I did leave more space than usual – honest! I was determined not to have one of those last minute panics and was convinced I'd have plenty of time.

But when I opened OBS – the programme that allows me to talk to the camera, feed in my microphone, interact with Facebook Live, and swap screens - it decided it wasn't recognising my webcam.

I went into the settings, scrambled around to find the bit relating to the webcam but couldn't find anything out of place. I closed the programme and relaunched it, but still nothing. Eventually I went round to the back of the computer, unplugged the webcam, counted to 10 and plugged it back in.

Success! Woo-Hoo!

Oh crap - why isn't the microphone working?

So back into the OBS settings to make sure it recognised the mic

And then I remembered Microsoft had recently done another major update. The last 2 times it's done that, I've only discovered after Maggie has had to interrupt the live podcast, that my voice is coming across all high pitched and squeaky.

So now I had to go into the computer settings to change the microphone defaults.

The countdown timer changes to "LIVE NOW" and about 8 seconds later, I swap the screen to my webcam and begin, "AND welcome to..."

Even though I know they have a team of people operating the equipment and have someone to count them in, since these podcasts began I've gained an entirely new appreciation of news readers, daytime TV magazine hosts, and live presenters everywhere.

Meanwhile, enjoy episode 59 below!

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0:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments
6:35 - Creating a photo shoot for Mr Pook's Kitchen
30:02 - Introduction to the Critique section of the podcast
31:09 - Critique of images submitted to the Facebook Group, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"
1:08:26 - Creating a side light and shadows from an on-camera flash
1:20:35 - Coming up next week
1:23:45 - End

If you found this interesting/useful/entertaining, then please consider supporting these podcasts and blog posts via buymeacoffee.com/kimayres

Also consider subscribing to my YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/kimayres – to help me build the numbers.

And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then do join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/