How did you author the photo you recorded for upload to Instagram?
This week our focus is on the authoring, publishing and distributing our own content on Instagram. Using Instagram has been my daily routine since I was a college kid, it allows me to share my days with my friends and peers to keep us in touch, also it provides a platform for content creators to innovate their ideas which align with our aesthetic and values.
I thought for a while about the style and the content of my account. As currently is a quarantine time, is it better for me to stay at home rather than hanging out, so I decided to utilise this account to share some easy recipes that I have made during this moment in Melbourne. For this week, I made ‘egg dumplings’, it is so easy that only spend me less than 10 minutes. In order to record the photo, I put the dish on a flat surface under an abundant of light and used my iPhone XR to capture the photo. Perhaps, I was not satisfied with the 1st trial as the lighting was not good, so I used the light torch to add some more lights to make the dumplings look juicier and mouthwatering. Indeed, I used the ‘square’ function in the iPhone camera and make the object centralised in structure to take the photo so it could fit the constraints of Instagram. Consequently, the photo was great.
Afterwards, I used ‘Snapseed’ to edit the exposure, stains and lighting in the photo (showed in Pic.2). Then, I opened ‘Lightroom’ installed on my phone to edit the colour distribution of the photo, as Lightroom allows users to edit different colours accordingly (showed in Pic.3). Prior to this step, I think of the consistency of my account which I decided the account could be rich in colours. For the last step, I used ‘RNI Flims’ to add ‘dust’ and ‘vignette’ into the photo (showed in Pic.1), so as to create a sense of retro style that corresponds to the current trend.
(Pic 1.)
(Pic 2.)
(Pic 3.)
Yet, I did not directly upload the photo through ‘RNI Flim’, because my usual practice is to upload the photo through Instagram thus there is a chance for me to edit if I wished to. Despite, for this photo, I did not use Instagram’s filter to further edit my photo.
How did you publish the photo you recorded for upload to Instagram?
Yet, I did not directly upload the photo through ‘RNI Flim’, because my usual practice is to upload the photo through Instagram thus there is a chance for me to edit if I wished to. Despite, for this photo, I did not use Instagram’s filter to further edit my photo as I prefer to edit freely rather than restricted by the filters and functions provided by Instagram and directly publish it after editing.
It was my first post in my new account @cookinmel__and it looks a bit drowsy. The title was ‘EGG DUMPLINGS’ with the egg and dumpling emoji and I included some information regarding this dish, such as estimated cook time, level of difficulty, ingredients and steps. Additionally, I added some hashtags, #eggdumplings #easyrecipes #masterchef #quarantinelife #cooking #easycooking #melbourneexchange #蛋餃.
I hope the way I publish could embody the current social media trend that the photo is on an aesthetic way, also reflect the ordinary subject and meaningful ideas (Manovich, 2016, p.10). As I am certain this theme could be meaningful during quarantine, it could make my day to be interesting, despite this account is typical but I still want to share what I have done during the lockdown. On the other hands, it could be an inspiration for other content creators to link up everyday moment surrounding the social environment with creativity by using their camera phone to capture them (Manovich, 2016, p.12).
How did you distribute the photo you published on Instagram to other social media services?
Mentioned in the previous paragraph, I exploited hashtags so to let my photo further distributed in the platform, users could search the relevant tags and discover my post. Perhaps, I tried to follow people who need request to increase the chance for following mutually, this act allows more users to browse my page, like the post I publish or even share it to their friends. However, the followers of this account are way more little than my personal account, which may not be sufficient in terms of distribution. Indeed, I switch my account to ‘business account’ with a label of ‘individual’ in my profile, therefore I could check the report in regards to the distribution and interaction of the post.
For further distribution, I uploaded the post into my Facebook account and share it with my friends. Mainly, the purpose is to raise awareness and ask for following my Instagram account so there is a different caption – ‘Limited Edition Insta Account’ with a link inserted into the post. Besides, I added some hashtags like what I did on Instagram. I did not directly share the post through Instagram as I would like to have a different caption, in addition, I want my audiences to focus on my Instagram rather than Facebook.
Another execution of ‘Egg Dumplings’ is Pinterest, I published it on my Pinterest and create a board named ‘Food’ with the title ‘Foodie’ and caption – ‘egg dumplings!! Super delicious!! Master Chef during the quarantine. Further information available on Instagram’ with laughing emoji. I also inserted a link to forward audiences to my Instagram account page. Sharing on Pinterest is a way to influence people who like to cook or love taking pictures of food to ‘pin’ my post and save to their ‘board’, the ‘pin’ function on Pinterest allows users to influence mutually which help to further distribute my photo.
Pinterest 
Facebook
References
Manovich, L. 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego, USA, Part 1 p. 9-18