Tag / week 9

by amandathai

Week 9 Video: “Now arriving at–Narre Warren.”

How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?

I authored this photo on my iPhone 6S’s rear-facing camera and the camera function built into the Instagram app. This video was taken on my train ride home. Throughout the train ride, I was brainstorming ideas for my video, my photo having already been completed. Originally I intended to get out of my seat well before my stop (Berwick) and film the train doors opening. Then, using the start-stop feature, I planned to stop the video, step outside onto the platform, then film the doors closing, all from a very neutral angle with the doors flat and centre.

It didn’t work out that way. I realised how illogical it would be to try and line up a photo at one of the busiest stops and also get off the train before the doors closed. So instead, at the stop before mine (Narre Warren), I simply twisted around in my seat, leaned backwards to avoid getting the lady next to me in the shot, and simply filmed the train doors as they closed. No stop-start. Just me taking a spontaneous video.

I was quite disappointed with the lack of editing features available for video. I applied a black and white filter (‘Moon’ I believe), and set it to 80 strength, so it was almost black and white but not quite.

Rather boringly, I used the ‘Cover’ feature but selected the first frame as my thumbnail.

If you watch the video at the link above, you’ll notice the audio is muted.

That was unintentional. I wanted to record the audio, the loud beeping of the train doors as they closed, yet in my exploratory button-pressing during editing, I must’ve accidentally muted it. I mean, I guess it kind of works with the black and white filter?

The biggest differences in authoring this video, compared to just taking a photo on the iPhone Camera app was the fact I had to hold down the button to take a video, similar to Snapchat. The start-stop feature looked incredibly intriguing so I will figure out a way to incorporate it into future posts.

 

How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?

Though I had ideas in mind prior to authoring this video, I ended up taking only one video and posting it straight away. As I mentioned in my photography post, I wanted to get the experience Instagram and the network affords: taking a photo on the go and posting it almost instantaneously.

Simone Bramante geotagged his photos in Week 7, so I decided to geotag this too. I’m mildly annoyed by the fact ‘railway station’ isn’t capitalised.

Like for my photo, I wanted my captions to be short but quirky. In my caption, I put what I consider to be the title of this work: “Now arriving at–Narre Warren.” Why did I choose this? I feel like it’s a relatable line and it prefaces the video as often you’ll hear this phrase well before the train stops and the doors open. Like with my photo, I added hashtags for the course name, uni, subject matter and then one silly one detailing my thoughts. I want to continue this trend through all my photos and videos, always with one rambly hashtag. A hashtag is intended to be a tag, something short and universal, but I thoroughly enjoy subverting that, as many others have done, with lengthy, lengthy hashtags.

 

How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?

From Instagram, I shared this photo to my personal Facebook with a very brief comment: “A video for that same uni class.” Since I already posted my photo to Facebook explaining the sudden influx of Instagram shares, I opted for a short succinct post.

For my second social media service, I posted to my book-related long-forgotten Twitter. I tweeted: “My Week 9 Instagram video for a uni class. instagram.com/p/Bn3Fon9gou5/…” It was only now, after I posted both my photo and video to Twitter, that I realised Twitter didn’t display a preview of the photo/video like I assumed it would.

So now I just have two super boring tweets with links. I also can’t find the button to edit my tweets and it’s nearly midnight so before I turn into a pumpkin I better go write my two blog posts for another class.

These posts (both here and on Instagram) will get better, I promise.

by amandathai

Week 9 Photo: Exit

 

But before we launch into questions…

The FAQ no one asked for:

Why the handle @no_metaphors_allowed?

Because Nash emphasised–very strongly–that our photos and videos should be of actual doors, not metaphorical ones.

What is that profile picture?

It’s a photo of my old phone with a picture of a door on it. I wanted something that would capture both the topic of doors and the study of mobile photography/videography and the network.

What’s your bio?

 

How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?

I authored this photo on my iPhone 6S’s rear-facing camera and the camera function built into the Instagram app. This photo was taken a few minutes after the end of my Week 9 tutorial, after everyone had left the room. It was the first door I saw after Nash announced the theme (and also banned metaphorical doors).

As an Instagram noob, I first tried to zoom in by pinching my fingers which I soon found out wasn’t a thing on Instagram. So instead, I physically manoeuvred my body around this computer pod table and leaned forward so as not to get the tops of the computer screens in my shot. This wasn’t unusual for me as I’ve taken photos on my mum’s DSLR with a fixed lens. It felt much like that, which gave it an air of professionalism, despite the fact I was just using my phone.

This being only my second Instagram post ever, I experimented liberally with the editing functions available. I won’t list them all out but the most notable edits I made were: selecting the ‘Gingham’ filter, using the ‘Colour’ function to turn the shadows purple and the highlights yellow (to better emphasise the orange clouds on the screen beside the door), and adding a linear ‘Tilt Shift’ to blur everything except the door. Though I may not use Instagram, I do love editing photos. My mum was a photographer for a period of my life and she got me into Photoshop and then years later, photo-editing apps. Even though I don’t often post my photos, I thoroughly enjoy picking out the best ones from a day out or a selfie session and trying out different editing features. The app I usually use is Snapseed and though Instagram’s controls were a lot less intuitive, the functions were familiar.

The biggest differences in authoring this photo, compared to other smartphone photos was the inability to zoom and the inability to take more than one photo and sift between them before editing. Immediately after taking the photo, you are taken to the editing screen. These two elements combined felt strangely archaic and almost reminded me of the feeling of taking a Polaroid–having to physically move your body to get the right zoom, and being forced to take one shot at a time.

(Now, several hours later, I have done some more experimentation and discovered that Instagram has a ‘Drafts’ feature, oops.

…2 minutes later I also discovered it has a ‘Select Multiple’ feature that lets you post multiple images in one post. Oops.

I’m still learning.)

 

How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?

I only took one photo before the one I eventually settled on posting. In the first one, my composition felt off and I was getting the tops of computer screens in the shot. The second time, I lined it up better. I also posted the photo literally minutes after the tutorial so I didn’t even wait to see if better doors would strike me throughout the week. Instagram’s design is about ‘seeing and taking photos on-the-go’ (Systrom, quoted in Manovich 2016, p.12) and that’s what I wanted to harness in this Instagram experimentation. Instagram affords this incredibly quick process of seeing something cool, whipping out a phone, taking just one shot, and posting it within minutes, and that’s what I wanted to experience in creating this photo.

After seeing Simone Bramante geotag his photos in Week 7, I decided to geotag mine at RMIT. I added it in after publishing it because I didn’t know where to find the feature at first.

For my captions, I decided to keep them short and condensed, but also a little quirky. The part of the caption not in hashtags is intended to be the title of my photo work, ‘Exit’. For hashtags, I chose to keep them minimal, tagging only the course name, uni, subject matter and then one silly one detailing my thoughts. I liked the way I couldn’t use spaces as it helped convey a kind of stream of consciousness in a very short space.

 

How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?

From Instagram, I shared this photo to my personal Facebook with the explanation: “One of my uni subjects requires me to make Instagram posts and also distribute them across other platforms so here’s the first one.” I found the sharing process from Instagram to Facebook very smooth (so well integrated that immediately after posting, Instagram wanted me to link up my Facebook).

For my second social media service, I dug up my old dusty Twitter account that I used mostly to stalk my favourite authors. I tweeted simply: “My Week 9 Instagram photo for a uni class. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn2-y8en6wM/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet”. Again, the process was smooth, facilitated by Instagram’s easy sharing features.

I elected to not use hashtags here because, on these platforms, I am not the kind of person to use them, so I thought it would seem out of character. Funnily enough, many of my Facebook photos feature the same rigorous editing I used on this Instagram photo, but on Twitter, my identity there is more linked to my Goodreads account, where my profile photo is not of my face but of a purple eye.

But on this shiny new student Instagram account, I am a fresh slate.

I think I will enjoy these Instagram experiments.

______

References

Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego.