Last Updated on 03/03/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
Want to become Brandon Woelfel, even just for a day? This funny video should interest you.
Yes, we know, there are already a lot of videos out promising to teach everything there is to know about shooting and editing like Brandon Woelfel. Today, we’re adding one more to the pile. This time, it’s about young photographer, videographer, and social media creative Kelly Yu’s journey to “become” the Instagram-famous photographer for a day.
For the uninitiated, Brandon Woelfel is a New York City photographer known for his dreamy, youthful portraits with neon colors, fairy lights, and lots of bokeh. His style is among the most popular (and the most imitated, yes) among young photographers and aspiring Instagram stars, which explains all the tutorials that range from “bokehlicious night portraits” to more humorous takes on “How to Brandon Woelfel.”
Brandon is, of course, an icon for Kelly. But instead of following the usual trend of making “how to” tutorials, she shared her experience on “Being Brandon Woelfel” for a day. Watch her video below:
Kelly’s humorous approach is to become Brandon at every aspect — down to his choice of coffee and Twitter personality. Maybe that is irrelevant, but since her goal is to come at his entire branding, we can probably just let her have it. At the heart of every Brandon Woelfel tutorial are his props of choice, which Kelly amusingly put together into “The Brandon Woelfel Starter Pack.” With all that ready, the only things left for her to do was to shoot and edit in the creative spirit of the Insta-famous photographer.
What’s the key takeaway for Kelly — and her young viewers, especially — in this photography exercise? While the whole experience of “being” Brandon for a day was fun, in Kelly’s words, it was tiring. It’s not exactly easy to just pick up someone’s creative style and expect that you’ll get similar results with it. Also, getting inspired by someone you consider as an icon isn’t equivalent to copying his or her work.
Check out Kelly Yu’s YouTube channel for more of her videos or her website for her photography work.
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