How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I used my Samsung s5 rear camera to capture this picture, through the Instagram app. Because of the square format, I wasn’t sure how far or close I wanted to be to the door. I wanted the viewer to be able to see the plate of pipe cleaners and googly eyes on the door, but I didn’t want to get too close, because it would compromise the image of the door itself.
I ended up publishing this image twice before I was happy with it. The first time around, I had lowered the warmth to make the image look more white. While it did work, it didn’t match my other two posts, which I had mistakenly edited as a little too warm for the white, clean, high contrast look I was going for. So I took down the first post and raised the warmth to give it a more orange-yellow hue.
I raised the brightness, lowered the contrast, tried to get rid of some of the shadows, sharpened it, lowered the saturation by a little, and used the the Stinson filter set at 26 (again).
When I usually edit a photo, I have the ability to choose a marker on the image that should be white, and my editing app will automate the white balance. Since Instagram’s editor doesn’t have the ability to do that, I had to adjust it myself, which lead to my whole theme being too warm because I had my blue light filter on while I edited my first picture.
Manovich (2016, p. 99) distinguishes a designed photography as ‘coordinating them to achieve a distinct look, and being consistent’. Designed photos also consist of high contrast and brightness, negative space, and white backgrounds (Manovich 2016).
Since Manovich (2016, p. 103) emphasises that ‘the single most important strategy for creating a popular gallery of designed images is the consistent use of a strong visual style‘, I decided to edit this week’s photo and video to adhere to the same style as week 9, rather than try to white balance this photo. It’s also why I am using the same filter, set to the same percentage every week.
How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
When taking the image, I had forgotten that I was supposed to use the app to capture the picture. I started by using my phone’s default camera, but the picture wasn’t angled in that way that I wanted. I took 5 consecutive shaky pictures (I had just walked up 3 flights of stairs) before I remembered that I was supposed to use Instagram. When I switched to Instagram, I used the camera to take a picture of the door, and when I pressed ‘Next’ in the top right corner, the preview of it had a much better angle and wasn’t as shaky.
I put the caption ‘i don’t really understand why someone put a plate of googly eyes on a door but i’m glad i found it.’ which was just my observation rather than a witty or punny one–mostly because I couldn’t think of anything despite my efforts. I added the location in after I had uploaded it.
How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
To publish this to Twitter and Tumblr, I realised that there was an option to toggle the sliders to share it automatically rather than manually. So I used that method instead. Since I didn’t put any hashtags in the description (I commented them instead), the tweet didn’t use any hashtags, and Twitter doesn’t afford editing a tweet.
As for Tumblr, I edited the post and added the tags “doors”, “door”, “rmit”, and “networkedmedia” into the tags section as they were the same hashtags that I used on Instagram.
Since this was the first time that I used the “share to other platforms” method, I had to sign into my Twitter and Tumblr accounts through Instagram and give the app permission to post on my behalf.
References
Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego.