Imagine skyrocketing your influence and income as a photographer, all by mastering YouTube. In this episode, Pat Miller sits down with beauty & portrait photographer Miguel Quiles, revealing the "recipes" behind building a thriving content channel that sets you apart in a noisy market.

Episode Highlights 🎤💡:

(02:19) – From portraits to YouTube content

(09:46) – The truth about thumbnails

(14:47) – Advice for aspiring YouTubers

(20:00) – Why audiences want YOU, not just the gear

Connect with Pat Miller ⬇

LinkedIn | Website

Connect with Miguel Quiles ⬇

Website | Facebook | Instagram

Thank you to our sponsor, Sony!

Sony Alpha Universe | Sony Creators’ Cloud | Sony Electronics | Sony

I'm Pat Miller, and this is The Professional Photographer Podcast. Welcome in to The Professional Photographer Podcast. I'm your host, Pat Miller. We are live at Imaging USA 2025 in Dallas in the Sony Studio. I'll gush on them in just one minute. This is the Scale Your Influence series where I've been able to sit down with YouTubers and content creators about how they think about creating content and what we can learn from them so we can get better at it. Our guest today is Miguel Quiles, and he is, well, he's a YouTube king. I mean, not really, but we're going to talk about making him a YouTube king in this video. Watch it all the way to the end. We have some fun. We're also going to talk about thumbnails: how to do them right, how not to do them right, how to pick the right topics, how to think about creating your content. We go all over the place in this interview, and if you're a want to be a YouTuber, you really want to go someplace with it, you're going to love this interview. So, Miguel, standing by. We'll get to him in a minute. Now back to the gushing on Sony. They brought us the cinema line cameras, and they are working flawlessly. And the Monitor & Control app, it has been the star of the show. People are walking up to this iPad that's running the entire show. No wires whatsoever. And people keep on saying, oh, my gosh, this is great. What is that all about? If you're interested in capturing live content, the Monitor & Control app, it's really something special. So check that out. Okay, let's get on with the show. Miguel Quiles is standing by. Let's bring him on now. Miguel, welcome to The Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

Doing awesome. Doing awesome. Excited to be here.

I'm excited you're here. We've been doing content for the last couple of days here at Imaging USA. How have you found the convention? Having a good time?

Oh, I mean, Imaging USA is like, one of the best shows for photographers. There's no way you can come here and not have fun. It's like spring break for me. It's been amazing.

Spring break. Maybe less suntan lotion, but you know?

Less suntan lotion. But like, from the social perspective, you know, you can't come here and not make, like, at least five new friends. And so that's the fun part. And you get to learn new things, get to touch products, like, this is spring break.

This is the place to be.

Yeah.

Tell us about who you are and what you do if they're not already subscribed to your work with Sony and what you do personally.

Yes. So by trade, I'm a headshot and portrait photographer. That's what I've been doing for the last over 12 years at this point. In recent years, I've kind of focused more on creating content. And that was all thanks to the pandemic. When that came up, and I couldn't do the portrait stuff because we're allowed to congregate, I kind of made a pivot towards creating YouTube content. So now I create content on my own personal YouTube channel where I give out tips for photographers, also for content creators. And then I also create content for Sony's YouTube channel, which is Alpha Universe. And there it's more of talking about new products that come out, different ways to set up your camera to get good results. So, yeah, it's pretty fun.

Are there different parts of your brain that are activated when I'm doing headshot photography versus creating content versus being a teacher on camera? Like, that must be different parts of your personality, maybe?

It's definitely a different part of the brain. If you have the resources to be able to have a team, then you can just focus on one thing and it's very easy. For me, I find photography to be very easy. You get in, you have your concept, you take your shots, call it a day, everything's nice and smooth. Content creation takes a lot. Takes a lot. You have to plan things out, talk about, you know, you have to think about, what do you want to talk about? You have to figure out, how do I package that? Because sometimes the topic that you want to talk about, if it's just like how to take a good portrait. Well, there's a million videos on YouTube of how to take a portrait. So you got to come up with a novel way to be able to talk about what you want to talk about, but not have it with that title. So you do all this research. There's a lot to it. You know, it's not just turn it on and say what you're going to say and turn it off, upload, and you're done. At least not for me. There's a lot of research involved, just trying to make sure that I can package the topic in a way that's approachable, that's useful, and that takes a lot of different parts of the brain that just activate and fire and so, yeah, it's very, very different.

If someone wants to create on YouTube, let's start here because I think you hit on something super important. Packaging and perspective. I want to talk about this, but who cares? How do you push it to a point where it's interesting enough that that topic is worth clicking on or consuming? So how do you approach finding that perspective on what you want to teach in a way that people will care?

You know, for me, I put myself in the shoes of the person who's viewing. And so for me, I'm always thinking, if I was looking for this information, what would I search for? And I would go through that, and I would see if there's already existing content that people could find easily on those types of topics. And if I can lend a different perspective, then I just roll with that. If my perspective is already covered through that, then I try to package it in a different way. So, you know, luckily there's a lot of tools nowadays that really help with that process. But there's still a lot of just research. And it always just starts with me just putting myself in the shoes of the person who would be looking for that video and just trying to figure out what are all the different ways that they would search for this. And then, of course, with the content itself, making sure that the content delivers on whatever it is that I decide I land on. Can I drive that point home in a way that is very simple, that's very approachable? That's the biggest thing. Essentially, at the end of the day, I make content that I would have liked to have seen when I first started. So I put myself in those shoes of, like, the Miguel of 2008, that didn't know anything about photography that was trying to figure things out that would hit YouTube. How would he find this content? And then, what would he need to hear from this content to gain value? And that's what drives every decision, every action, every bit of research. It's all through that lens.

That adds a ton of value. We will come back to that. But I cannot gloss over the idea of there are these great tools that save you time.

Right.

Because I remember seeing TubeBuddy for the first time and my head exploded. So I assume you're thinking TubeBuddy, Answer The Public, what else?

Vidiq is great. Keywords Everywhere or Keywords Anywhere. Sorry, I can't remember off the top of my head. Those are great. Then there's other, I mean, those are probably the primary ones. Obviously, the YouTube search itself is extremely powerful. So searching, for example, if I was going to do like how to shoot with an off camera flash. I would start to type that in the search results, and it will show you how to shoot off camera flash outdoors, how to shoot off camera flash in studio, how to shoot off camera flash with a speed light. And I would look at it and say, okay, if my Idea was like 10th on the list of different options for the search result, I probably want to package it towards the top of that search result instead. But to be very honest with you, those tools, they're all fantastic. They're all great. However, with experience, I've learned that sometimes you just have to go with your gut because there's been many times where the tool tells me this is not going to be a good video, it's not going to do well. They give you all these statistics and it's a one out of a hundred. Basically, don't do this video topic too competitive. It's too this. And then you just, again, you've done the research, you approach it in the right way, and it does great.

Yeah.

So, one of my videos, I had a video that I put out a few months ago that when I did the research, it literally was like a zero out of 100. It's like, just don't make this video. And then I made it and it turned out to be a 350,000 view video in like three weeks. Like explosive growth. And I knew in my heart, I was like, this has to be something that's approachable for people. Like, this is going to do well. And of course, it took a few days. I was a little nervous because the first few days I was like, oh, man, maybe that tool was right. And then it, nope, it just through the roof.

Does your inner hype man have to argue with your inner educator sometimes that, you know this has to exist, but your hype man is telling you, no, we got to do it this way? Do those two conflict?

Yeah, sometimes it does. I mean, especially when you have friends that also are in the YouTube sphere. You know, sometimes that kind of muddies your feelings on how things are going to perform and how it's going to do. But, ultimately, I follow my gut. And the cool thing about YouTube is that it may not do well today, but that doesn't mean that I can't repackage it and revisit it half a year from now, a year, two years. I mean, I've done stuff, repackage it from five years ago and it just hits differently. It hits at the right time. So there's a lot of that as well.

Whenever I talk to YouTubers, I always want to ask them to explain how important thumbnails are because I've heard people say they're the only thing that matters when it comes to getting video views.

Right.

Give us the religion on thumbnails.

So it's very interesting because what you hear sounds right. In theory, when you go to YouTube, you see a thumbnail and you see the title of the video, and if the title is good, you'll see the entire title. Some people make very long titles, and then it gets cut off, and then you go back to the thumbnail, and if the thumbnail is very strong, then hopefully you earn the click. However, I will say that I've had some videos that I didn't feel the thumbnail was very powerful, but the title was great, and the video does great. So it's a weird thing. I've just learned over the years that the traditional advice when it comes to title and thumbnail, it's mostly true, but there are still videos that can break out that don't have a great thumbnail, that just have a good topic. Sometimes, the YouTube algorithm just blesses you one day with just like, it's a terrible topic and all of a sudden just, I don't know, they put it in front of a lot of people, and a lot of people click on it. But it's good YouTube practice to come up with at least two or three different thumbnail options, come up with two or three different titles, and roll the dice and let's see which one actually performs.

Do you have a folder on your machine full of hundreds of surprise looking faces and pointing at things that you use in your thumbnails?

So it's really funny. I actually made a video for Alpha Universe because you make everything in the content. So it was basically taking selfies, and so I used the creator's app to basically set up my camera on a tripod and with a gray background with my lights and everything. And I just do a bunch of faces and expressions, and then I have them in a folder, and then I go into Photoshop, cut out the background, and you know? So that's kind of the low hanging fruit of a thumbnail. If I don't, if I didn't think about it ahead of time, then I'll just go ahead and I'll pull one of those and I'll take A piece of the video. And then I'm like, you know, but, you know, it's better. And I've learned this as well in the last year that if you pre-plan your thumbnails, like, I don't go into that folder as much anymore. Like, while I'm actually at the shoot, I'll stop and I'll think, okay, let's make sure we shoot a thumbnail before we leave. And you know, again, sometimes those perform great. Sometimes, the really silly YouTube face performs well. You just never know. It's literally just a crapshoot.

Let's talk about a body of work. Do you think about your channels like a newspaper reporter? Here's what's important. It's on the headline. Or are you writing a library of content such that your YouTube channel is turning into all of these volumes that people need to know? How do you think about it?

So I have a really weird brain when it comes to content. For me, I talk about whatever I want to talk about. And so there's a lot of different topics that I feel just from my background. I come from a sales background, and so I approach things differently. And sometimes, I'll have an idea and I'm like, this is going to be the video that I make right now. And if that video does well, or if I find that there's a lot of engagement where people are like, well, what about this? What about this? Okay, well, cool. We'll go down the rabbit hole. I'll make a second video or a third video. But a lot of it is me just trying out different things. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I do go through some seasons where there is kind of a rhyme or reason, where it's lighting season, where I'm going to teach you five ways to use a modifier or, you know, my favorite techniques for shooting portraits outdoors, or three things to do or three things not to do. So I follow those same kind of templates, but really, when it boils down to it, I just make whatever I like to make at the time. I wouldn't recommend that to everybody. If they're wanting to get into YouTube, you probably should follow a more kind of scalable formula. But for me, my YouTube channel is just kind of my digital diary. You know, I make things that I even use them for reference. I'll make a video and I'll go back to it, like years later. I'll forget how to do something, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I made a video about that. Let me rewatch my own video.

Sure.

And that's kind of like the test, you know, the moment of truth. Like, can I watch my own video and relearn something that I forgot because I haven't done it in years? So there's a lot of that. There's definitely a lot of that.

Let's talk to someone that wants to be as involved as you are with YouTube. What are some words of wisdom to get them started, to accelerate their content commitment? Because you can't just make it once every three or four weeks when you feel like it. If you're going to do this, talk them through making that choice and that commitment to create content.

I think that the hardest thing for people when they're getting started is that they're too worried about their self-image. They're in their own heads. They're worried about how they sound, how they look, and they just don't create. They talk themselves out of it. They're like, oh, well, there's already somebody else who's talked about this, and they're way better, way more famous, way, whatever. They give themselves a lot of excuses to not get started. And what I would tell those people is that you need to create a lot of content before you could find yourself, find your voice, find your approach, your first, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 videos are probably not going to be great. And if they are, like, wonderful. But realistically, I can only think of a handful of creators that I've ever seen that come right out of the gates on YouTube that just kill it. Usually, it takes them a little while. They have to figure out their process and figure out do you script your content or do you just talk off the cuff? Do you shoot a bunch of B-roll and then look at it and say, what's the story? And then make up a story after and do VO. So you got to figure out what is the best way for you to create content. And the only way to do that is to put in the reps. You know, you don't go to the gym and all of a sudden you work out once and you're buff or you're fit. It's a consistency that you have to apply. But the thing that keeps people from being consistent is that they're just in their own heads. So if you can just be okay with the fact that you're going to be on camera, you're going to sound funny to yourself, but to other people, they don't see that. And if they do, then okay, over time the awkwardness goes away. But if you're not creating consistently, you're going to take yourself out of the game before you even ever get a chance to get into it. And I could tell you that, for me, YouTube changed my life. The people that I've been able to work with, I've been in rooms with people that I would never be in the same room with these people had it not been because of YouTube and the content that I create. It's changed my life. It's made a career for me, a living for my family. So I would tell people that whatever it is that's holding you back from doing it, understand that on the other side of that awkwardness and that challenge could be like a whole different life. They could be here with you right now doing this podcast.

You know what? Someday, maybe, if they work really hard.

They work super hard. They could do this.

Take their vitamins, say their prayers.

Absolutely.

No. Anytime. You mentioned feeling not quite confident, not really liking the way you look yet, sticking with it, and you get to where you want to go.

Yes.

Does that still show up for you when you're creating content?

I mean, there's not a video that I've done where I feel like I'm not telling myself, man, you know, I could have done that a little bit better. Like, that I'm not in my own head. There's always this imposter syndrome that comes up, especially when you know that your video is going into a stream where there's other content creators that are, you know, more famous, bigger audience, so on and so forth. And so you think about that, and then it's very easy to just be like, yeah, I'm just not going to put this video out today, you know, or just leave it. And then it never gets put out. But you have to put it out. You have to do it. And realistically, if the content doesn't do good, no one's going to see it anyway, so who cares? You know, you just kind of get out there and you put it out there, and you never know. I had a video that I made, I want to say it was in, like, 2019, had a topic in mind. I felt like the topic was helpful. I filmed the video like, midday, went back to my house, edited the video, uploaded the video, said, I'm gonna go to the grocery store. After I uploaded it, went and did groceries, came back to my house and in that span of time, the video had like 30,000 views.

Whoa.

And this never happens.

Yeah.

Bunch of comments. And I'm like, this is really weird. Let me see what people are commenting. And I see the comments, and they're like, my left ear loved this video. And a lot of like, weird comments like that. And I'm like, what?

What? When was this?

What is this? So I put on my headphones and sure enough, the audio was only one channel audio. But here's the dilemma, because the video is blowing up.

Yeah.

So it's like, okay, so what do I do? Do I take this video down right now, copy the, you know, second channel of audio, and then re upload and just hope that it gains traction again? I was like, no, I'm just gonna leave it. And then today it's at like, I don't know, a million views.

That's awesome.

A million and a half views. And so all of that to say, like, your audience just wants you to show up. I didn't show up perfectly for them at that point. But the content was good. The information was helpful, and it did great. It's been my best performing piece of content.

And that's the difference between taking a photo.

Right.

And being a person in a video.

Correct.

The people that are clicking on your channel, they want you.

Right.

The nice cuts and the lighting and the gear, it's all helpful.

It's all helpful.

They're there for you as opposed to you creating an image. And it's about the image.

Right. Right.

Big difference.

It's a huge difference that I think there's still people that don't understand that. There's some people that hide behind that. It's like, oh, it's all about the image. And the image is a big part of it. But realistically, people gravitate to the artist. They gravitate to the content creator. And I know a lot of content creators that don't even show, like, they're in the photography space. And I've never seen a photo from them. But yet they talk about photography. They do reviews for products, so there's a market for that as well. You have to figure out, what lane do you want to be in.

Okay. We're going to end by giving you a promotion.

Nice.

You are now the king of photography, YouTube. Everyone must succumb to your demands.

My neck hurts. That's a heavy crown.

Are you ready? The crown is on.

Yes.

Okay. Photography, YouTube. The world needs more what?

I think that the world needs more recipes for how to take good photos. And I felt like this is what brought me into YouTube in the beginning, and I feel like it's the same problem today that I identified personally when I first started YouTube back in, like, 2012, is that you still have a lot of people that talk about the theory of things. They show their work, they cheerlead their work, the audience loves their work, but they don't show you the nuts and bolts, and they don't talk enough about the actual nuts and bolts that if you decide, like, wow, that's a beautiful image, I want to take that. They don't know how to take it. They just have the inspiration, but then they'll go out there and they'll fumble. So that's kind of the approach that I take with my content personally. And I still see that it's a huge gap in the market. So, you know, there's a lot of content creators that I watch that I love their work, and I'm like, man, I wish you would talk about how you shot that. And they talk about it, but it's from this high level where I'm sure they feel like they are giving the nuts and bolts of how to do it. But if I got my camera and tried to just go base off of what they say, I'm still not creating what they're creating. So I try to give all of that. And then you have a jumping off point. If you like the exact way I did it, you know exactly how I did it. If you look at it and you're like, well, you know, I like it, but I would do it like this or I would change this. Well, great. You got the recipe. Once you have the recipe, if it's too much sugar, don't put so much sugar. Put a little bit less. Or you can switch it for Stevia or whatever. You know what I mean? That's terrible. Tastes like dirt. But if you want to do that, by all means, go ahead and put Stevia in there. So, you know, that's what I would say. I mean, I personally would love to see more photography content creators that actually talk more about the nitty gritty. And I know for a lot of people, I'll be honest, I talk to a lot of people behind the scenes, and I'm like, so I really love this photo. What lens did you use? Why did you choose this setting? And they're like, I don't know. I just turn on the camera and took it. So they don't think about it, and they don't put themselves in the shoes of somebody who's new, who wants to walk in their footsteps. So I'm more of that, like, hey, let me take your hand and show you exactly how I did it. And I would love to see more of that because then, even for me, I feel like I'm a student of the game even though I've been doing this for a very long time, I hope that 20 years from now I'm still a student of the game, and I try to just learn as much as I can. And I hope that people who are into that will also want to do the same.

Now the great ones are students of the game.

Yes.

Okay, here's the other side of the coin. King of YouTube, the world doesn't need another what?

The world doesn't need another product reviewer.

Oh, yes.

There are so many people that I talk to that want to get started on YouTube, and they feel like their jumping in point is, oh well, I need to start doing reviews of products. And you know, the reality of the whole thing is like there's already too many YouTubers out there that there's big YouTubers, mid-sized YouTubers. There's new people coming in that review products, and we don't need more people reviewing products. We need people taking the products and using them, and creating good work regardless of whether it's a great product or not and just doing something with it. And that's my biggest pet peeve, I think, in the platform when I talk to new people who are wanting to get into YouTube, they feel like that's kind of like when you get started with photography, you feel like I have to shoot weddings because that's how you make money. When in reality there's a lot of things you could shoot and make money. It doesn't have to be that you work a 12-hour day and you don't like marriage and you don't like love, but you're a wedding photographer. You know what I mean? Like, you don't have to do that if you don't want to. You could be on YouTube, be in the photography space, and you could tell stories about the photos you've taken. You can do vlogs. You could interview people. There's so many different things that you can do. You don't have to be a product reviewer. We got too many of that. We're done with that. Gerald Undone has that corner of the market. Let him have it. Petapixel, they have it. Onto the next one.

Miguel Quiles, king of YouTube, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Good times.

Thanks for tuning in to The Professional Photographer Podcast. It has been an absolute blast creating content at Imaging USA 2025 in Dallas. A big thanks to Sony for making it all possible. Now, if you enjoyed this video, we really would like to know. Obviously, we'd love it if you'd subscribe and if you liked the video as well, but where you get super great bonus points, I'll mail them to you, that's where you leave a comment. We want to know what you liked about the video because one, we read them all; two, it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy; and three, it helps us know what to do more of. So if we get a bunch of comments on a video about this particular topic, you're darn right, we're going to do more on it. So if you love the video, leave us a comment. That'll help us know what to do. The other thing is, if you're not a PPA member yet, I don't know what to tell you. PPA is really doing it for photographers. They're offering equipment insurance. They're offering educational information and content all the time. Not to mention a supportive community of photographers that really want to see you win. You need to join and learn more at ppa.com. That's PPA.com. This is The Professional Photographer Podcast. I'm Pat Miller, your host. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you right here next time.