How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I used my Samsung s5’s rear camera, which has 16 megapixels. I used the camera in a portrait orientation, as I didn’t think the orientation mattered as Instagram prefers the square format. To record this, I had to physically lower the phone and angle my arms in a slightly awkward way to get the camera closer to the doorknob rather than face level.
To edit the video, I used the same Stinson filter and also lowered it to 26. Instagram doesn’t allow numerous editing features like it does for images, so using the filter was all I could do to try to maintain a level of consistency with my feed.
Even though the video has an option to play audio, it is barely audible unless the volume is turned up. I ended up taking three of the same videos before deciding on my latest. I played around with the positioning of my phone, as well as how I opened and closed the door. I had to force myself to angle my phone towards the door when I closed it, as the first video wasn’t focused on the door so it missed the closing of it.
In terms of my normal practice of videography—I usually don’t record videos. The only time I do is when I want to keep a memory; my most recent one was when I was in Vietnam at the start of this year, and I had went to the zoo with my cousins. Even then, I ended up capturing mostly images rather than videos. As Brodovitch (cited in Manovitch 2016) says, ‘the trend in today’s photography is … toward the more spontaneous and sincere way of seeing.’ Even though Brodovitch talks about photography, this can still be applied to videography itself, as my video recordings are usually my perspective of the world.
For the cover frame, I chose a shot of the door where it was light, instead of the default dark one. I chose it mostly because it would match the image that I already had from my previous post, as well as the obvious image of the door.
2. How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I ended up re-recording me opening and closing the door three times before I decided on the third one. As mentioned above, I wasn’t always conscious of the way that I positioned the camera, which meant that I had to hold it in a slightly unnatural way (unnatural, in that I wasn’t used to it) to get the final video.
I didn’t add a location to the image as, mentioned in my previous blog post, I took the video at home so I don’t want to share my address. The caption is a simple ‘open / close’. The act of me opening and closing the door was enough to evoke Rowling’s quote of “I open at the close”, and while I was tempted to use it, I decided not to because the video had nothing to do with the franchise.
3. How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
I published this video to Twitter and Tumblr. When publishing to Twitter, I only wrote the caption and hashtags, and then linked to Instagram instead of publishing the video itself.
When posting to Tumblr, I added the video as a new video post and hyperlinked the same caption to the Instagram post. Tumblr doesn’t afford selecting a cover frame, so I had to stick to the default one that was also given to me on Instagram.
I used the same hashtags of #doors and #door. With Twitter, the hashtags are incorporated within the tweet itself, but with Tumblr, the tags has their own section under the post so it doesn’t compromise aesthetics the post.
In this sense, Tumblr is more similar to Instagram as, like Manovich (2016, p.18) says, the site ‘combines many activities together in a single structure’. Tumblr allows for posting of numerous types of post—images and photos, and contains the social aspect of liking, reblogging, commenting. However, Tumblr isn’t made specifically for photography or videography, so the website doesn’t have an image editing component.
Twitter also affords users to upload photos and videos. But, like Tumblr, it doesn’t afford editing. Even though Twitter has the option to upload videos and images into the tweet, I didn’t—mostly because I chose to share from Instagram, which generated the tweet for me so all I had to do was edit the caption and press “tweet”.
Manovich (2016, p. 18) describes the ability to access everything on one application (Instagram) as being ‘systematically connected’, it’s also reflected in the way that I was able to easily share the individual Instagram posts with a click of a button. The connectivity of these different apps and platforms affords the ease and convenience of sharing—so long as the user has an account with all of the apps.
References
Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego.