DOOR QUOTES // POST SIX

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

Keeping with the theme of elevators this week, I wanted my ‘final’ post (I will continue to post more next week to fuel my report) to truly utilise all that the Instagram app has to offer. That meant not using any third party app’s to edit or tweak my photo, relying strictly on the app’s affordances. However, I didn’t take the photo with the in-built camera as I knew I wanted to take multiple shots at once before pressing “post.” Standing in my apartment building’s lobby, I realised that this was a good opportunity to take a snap of the elevator doors while waiting for them to open. With pretty foliage to compliment the dark building, I took six shots on my iPhone 8 rear-facing camera with no flash. The flash would have been convenient in this situation as the space is quite dark, however, I didn’t want the light to reflect off the doors and ruin the image. While taking these photo’s I stood in the same position as there was no other placement I could have tried which would have included both door and greenery in the frame. Knowing I was going to have to crop this image into the Instagram square, I allowed for headroom and extra space (stepping backwards) to allow for the image to be cropped without losing the main elements. Of course with editing this week, I had to refrain from using my favourite editing app VSCO and instead use Instagram’s own editing tools. To be honest, Instagram has improved significantly since the beginning of its creation. Like VSCO, you can alter the exposure, contrast and saturation all while cropping, reshaping and straightening the image. For someone who enjoys simple and quick editing, this was all I could ask for and more. Amongst doing all I said above, I also sharpened this image a little. Instagram, however, doesn’t have my favourite C1 filter (VSCO) so I instead picked their inbuilt filter “Crema.” What is important to note is that Instagram allows you to choose, like VSCO, the intensity of your filter. Shown to the right is a photo of the slide bar that allows for this. I ended up not going with 100% intensity in the end as it was too yellow for my liking. Ultimately, using the Instagram filters isn’t my cup of tea. Although it can be used beautifully in some instances, in low light spaces they can cause the image to appear darker, dull and not really add much to the final post. For example, the film filter on my video from this week added a bit of life to my original dull recording. That is why many people lean towards using third-party applications to edit as there are more filter options that can work better across more images.

Original photo ^

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

I wasn’t actually intending on using this photo as this week’s image. I planned to go out and try and take more photo’s as the week went by. However, I didn’t get much opportunity to find new doors to capture so I settled with my backup choice in the end. The caption for this week is quite big compared to the rest, stating: ““You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” – Johnny Cash.” This quote, unlike my last post, doesn’t fit the image in any way. However, whenever I see a quote written by someone famous whom I know of, I instantly want to use it. Plus, this quote is extremely inspiring and motivational. By once again placing my hashtags in the comment section, I ended up thinking of 17 tags to add to my post. I wanted to think of as many as possible due to the fact my last post of an image didn’t do so well. I am actually surprised my videos have done just as well, if not better, than my photos. The extra tags for this post worked in the end, generating the most likes I’ve received for a post thus far. While observing the traffic once publishing, I found it interesting how my post was slow to receive any attention. Most of my likes came from users hours after posting! I also posted this image late at night which I thought was risky considering many people were either asleep or out being social.

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

For the last time during this experiment I distributed my photo to Twitter and Tumblr. Unlike with my last post, I didn’t go the extra mile to add anything to the shared posts (with the links to my Instagram) such as tags or captions. However, that didn’t change the amount of attention I received on Twitter. I ended up getting 50 impressions on my tweet which was incredibly shocking considering I put no effort into having the post be seen. I wonder if this is because I had more words in my Instagram caption, resulting in more tag-able words Twitter could use in order to spread my tweet. My Tumblr post, on the other hand, didn’t generate much attention. If anything, Tumblr has become quite a dead platform in regard to posting links. To be successful on this platform you would have to put in the effort to create an account with more substance that just links to Instagram posts. “Collingwood” was also added as my location for this post, adding that little bit extra distribution.