Networked Media Week 9 Photo

1.How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I will start by saying that I am not an avid user of Instagram. I have a personal Instagram account made many years ago. I mostly use it to monitor other creators rather than posting my content. I have thus created a separate account called @networked_design to upload my photos and videos to keep everything in one place that is easy to locate.

The idea for my account was to create comparisons between the aesthetic appeal in designs that Instagram shows and the practical appeal behind my chosen designs as well. In the case of fairy lights, I am showing the appeal in the design of the string lights, how it’s easy to use and manipulate while the video displays the practical design of how they work.

This photo was taken with my iPhone 7 rear-facing camera using the Instagram camera. As a filmmaker, I understand there’s importance in setting up shots. However, I found it hard to keep myself stabilised at first to achieve the image I wanted. It was also a little frustrating that I couldn’t take multiple photos at once in the app. Coming from usually using my regular phone camera, this was a bit jarring. The previous day I had purchased a string of fairy lights when helping my mum grocery shopping, so I decided to use these for my first photo and video. I had them wrapped around the headboard of my bed and took the picture from one end with the fairy lights being the only lights on in the room. I tried to keep the photo symmetrical, although this wasn’t a priority. When taking the picture, I added the Paris filter for how it smooths over the grain of my camera. Before posting the video, I additionally added the Lo-fi filter to reduce light on the screen and blur out the fairy lights to a degree to make the wires connecting them less visible. Due to being unaware of other features, I didn’t end up making any other changes since I didn’t see the other added features initially. This was something I later discovered in the photos and videos for the next week, so I suppose that was a lesson learned for not thoroughly exploring my options for editing on the app.

2. How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I selected the chosen photo from my camera roll and uploaded it from there, after picking my filters. I decided to caption my picture with the question ‘To where do the lights lead us?’ I was trying to intentionally be cryptic with the question to tie it in with my next video. Admittedly in hindsight, it seems slightly cheesy and cliched for a photo about a string of lights. The picture was then published to Instagram under the account I had made @networked_design. As someone who is so unversed in the workings of the app, I knew the posts for this assignment would likely be my only posts using this account. I wanted them to hold both meanings to me and fit the criteria, so i’m hopeful that this starting post managed to achieve this.

3. How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
When publishing the photo to Instagram, I additionally added several tags that were relevant to the image ‘#lights #fairylights #photography #shadow #electricity and #light’. By tagging the picture with these tags, they will now be included and distributed to these tags, further spreading their reach to Instagram users that follow these tags. Shortly after uploading the photo, I received a few likes from other random Instagram users on the picture. This is no doubt a surefire sign about the importance of tagging photos when sharing.

It’s important that the tags are relevant to the image and that you have a variety of tags as from my personal experience. These tags can tend to be filled with photos from users that include tags, not relevant to their image. This, in turn, makes it more difficult for other users to grow their brand or audience on the app.

Additionally, I have also made a Tumblr and twitter profile under the same name to publish my content. Both sites allow content to be shared and for tags to be included. I used the same tags as above on both sites to further distribute my content to others to see.

https://networkedesign.tumblr.com/post/618363463349256192/to-where-do-the-fairylights-lead

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