This week I had a bit of a scary epiphany, there are one billion people using one piece of software to author, publish and ditribute their creative pursuits. Over the course of the semester, I have been encountering affordances and constraints that have been stopping me from achieving my original creative vision but then allow me to complete another action effectively. Like, for example, making it difficult to make video content to look good (due to low quality and lack of editing ability), but ensuring that images can look great (load quickly, are crisp, and having many editing options).

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Saw this old and pristine Maserati, couldn’t help myself

A post shared by Redefining The Door (@gracegotanotherinsta) on May 24, 2019 at 5:17pm PDT

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

I authored this video as I was coming home from a late dinner in Elwood. For the duration of this assignment I thought it’d be easier than it has proven to be, to find interesting doors in my day-to-day movement. This was the first time I actually saw a door I found really interesting in my daily travels and am still really happy with how the post turned out. The video is of an old Maserati that I saw parked in Elwood, I got the idea from the account @sleepingcars, which I have been following for a while. Although my post doesn’t quite do the car, or @sleepingcars justice, I really like the aesthetic that I created by recording a stationary object, with only people and things in the background providing a dynamic element (and my sub par filming abilities). 

I went back to recording on my iPhone SE so that I would be able to quickly stop the recording and re-film if I needed to. I didn’t have long, so I was under a bit of pressure to quickly record the video with stability. I tried with the flash on but that was a bit of a disaster, because the quality of my camera in the dark is pretty terrible, and once I saw the fairy lights in the shop across the road, I knew I wanted to make it a video. The low light casts a soft hue over the video which doesn’t come through as well on the low video quality of Instagram, but I love how the flashing lights make it look pretty kitsch.

I put the Lark filter over the video, again to make sure it fits well into my feed, although it is starting to frustrate me more and more that there are so few editing options for videos. I think this lack of editing tools shows just how much Instagram preferences the image over the video, and how this constraint could be limiting people’s creativity. On top of the very few editing options, the quality is always poor and often they take so long to load I don’t bother watching. I’m starting to think Instagram does it on purpose to encourage people to post less videos or to use IGTV instead. I also left the audio on just to make it a bit more immersive for the viewer.

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

I published the video with a simple caption because I didn’t feel like I needed to justify the post, like I have in many of my other posts. I used more hashtags than normal and more specific ones relating to the subject matter of the video, which has meant that the video has gained quite a few likes in a relatively short amount of time. When I authored the video I had an idea that it would resonate in the car and vintage car community of Instagram, so I used hashtags specific to this interest group, including #Maserati, #forumla1, #carlifestyle, #sleepingcars, #dreamcar, #vintagecars and #vintagecarsdaily. Through this making media task, I’ve been able to explore more interest-networks on Instagram more than I usually do. Considering that before this assignment I had only ever used hashtags ironically, becuase my account is private anyway, I have always shared subject matter that I enjoy and that I know my followers will enjoy because my network is closed. This open network, and hashtags, have allowed me to share my photos and videos with different people who have different interests, without worrying if the post fits thematically with the rest of my account.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I have been recording as many videos and photos as I can, so that I am then able to choose the best. And becuase some days it is easier to find good content than others. To ensure my recordings doesn’t go to waste, I created the ‘ Didn’t make it’ story highlight so that I am still able to revisit what I’ve seen and done. These stories however, are published some time after they were authored, which was not the major intention of Stories and means that the thread is still quite curated. 

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

As usual, I distributed the video on Tumblr and Twitter. Again, Twitter just posted the link so I ended up deleting the tweet and republishing it with the actual video as well as the link to my Instagram. During publication, I also added a location to distribute the photo more widely.

I kept the caption the same but changed the hashtags to just three; #Maserati, #Melbourne and #Sleepingcars. To me, Twitter is a platform more oriented towards politics and opinions than art, images and video so I never expect much engagement but this time my tweet got one like (Wow!). The automatic distributing between Instagram and Twitter is not great and feels very clunky,  and the fact that I have to go in and repost anyway defies the purpose of the automatic distribution feature.

 

If we look at Tumblr, it has a similar problem but not to the same extent, it posts the image with an Instagram border, which makes it look very out of place and bulky when in-line on the Tumblr feed, as well as on my actual Tumblr blog. So in future, it would look better (aesthetically) to distribute the video/photo manually to avoid having the Instagram border.

 

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Light up signs and neon give me a little bit of life every time I see them. Something about a lot of little, miss matched lights used to spread a dim, warm glow across a space makes it so cozy and allows a little bit of character to shine through in the darkness. Neon lights give character too, but in a more clinical, bright and obnoxious way. Or maybe I’m just reading too deeply into venue lighting.

A post shared by Redefining The Door (@gracegotanotherinsta) on May 23, 2019 at 2:48am PDT

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

For this week’s photo post, I recorded an image on Smith St in Fitzroy as I was passing it. It’s a doorway that I’ve had in mind to record as part of this assignment since we got it but I always rush past it and forget. This time I tried to author the photo inside the Instagram app, I managed to record the photo but I have realised I hate using the app to take photos. As I’ve mentioned before, you can only take one photo at a time, which is easily the biggest draw back because one of the main benefits of iPhone and digital photography is that you can take as many photographs as you like and then keep the best ones. This is a massive difference between digital photography and analogue photography, because with Analogue photography you need to take more time and care to position the image within the frame to capture the right photo, or risk wasting time and money. And you only get one or two shots to nail it, but you don’t find out until that moment is passed when you get your film processed and printed.

The first image is probably the most post-produced image I have made in the course of this assignment. For the first image, I brought the brightness down to create a more moody image, raised contrast to bring out the colours in the image and make the beer sign pop (I also increased saturated for the same effect), colour graded the image blue to try and create a more thematic feed and brought the highlights down to make sure the image didn’t look too gaudy. This is the first time in this assignment that I’ve experimented with the gallery feature on Instagram, and quite liked the result – two door photos linked through lighting which would otherwise have nothing to do with each other. Even on my personal Instagram, I tend to steer away from galleries because I know that as a consumer I only bother to scroll if I’m really interested especially if there is any more than three. So, it is lucky that Instagram makes us prosumers (both producers and consumers of content) and gives us the ability to change our processes on the same platform to more accurately reflect what we see as effective and aesthetically pleasing.

For the second image, I did much less, I increased contrast to increase the vibrancy of the neon light colour, lightened the shadows to make the neon light seem brighter and sharpened the image, which just made the edges of objects and shadow seem more dramatic. This week, I posted a few more photos and videos taken when I was in Europe, just to further explore the features, and mainly try and figure out why I hate using standard filters. And I think I have arrived at a draft answer; I really dislike the generic filters because they are way too:

1. Intense  – they change the image too dramatically and make it look either too lo-fi, provide weird vignettes or just look over done.
2. Standardised – they haven’t changed much since the inception of Instagram and I think when I see an image of someone using a generic filter it automatically looks like there was no thought process. This week’s reading noted that ‘Software applications and platforms are attractive precisely because they are designed toward increasing efficiencies and productivity…..and providing new forms of play and creativity’ (Kahoo et al, 2017, p.5). And in some way this is great, but Instagram’s mission of making it quick and easy to share images has been exceeded to the point where some images seem to have had no creative thought put into them at all. And when this is the case, they are not encouraging a creative process but cutting it up and bypassing all the hurdles people encounter, which would usually fuel their creativity.

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

I published the photos with a mid length caption, about the way lighting in venues makes me feel, because I feel that my images capture how lighting can build character. I added a few more hashtags than normal and so far they haven’t garnered more likes but I will check back in a few days. The hashtags were; #beer #door#neonlights #fairlights #boho #pub#inspo #drinks #happyhour#melbourne #nightlife #fitzroy, and I was quietly confident that these would garner more likes for my post, but I don’t think they have.

This week I decided to make a story feature called ‘Doors That Didn’t Make It’, but due to the constraint Instagram has when creating story highlights it is now known as ‘Didn’t Make it’. I started, and will continue to post, photos that I’ve taken of doors that I wasn’t quite sure about, either aesthetically or because I might have been pushing the definition of a door too much. But in a way, it makes me much more excited to provoke ideas of what doors may be, than to simply record doors, for instance, is the Chinatown Gate just a big door? After all, it is just a piece of wood signifying a threshold and that you are passing into a new space. And to me that’s a door.

 

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

I distributed the photos to Tumblr and Twitter again, and despite having a combined 600 followers between the sites, I don’t think this distribution strategy has increased traffic to my Instagram page, which is fine as I’m not concerned about that –

beyond understanding what conventions are most liked by my small following. In my past experience, people are much more likely to like a photo if there is a human in it, but I only have personal anecdotes to back this up.

Distribution of my stories happens automatically, but I also created an archive for those who may want to see them after they have expired as stories. This archive or ‘highlight’ is quite fun to flick through and has pushed me to find more creative objects that could be considered doors.

References:

Khoo E, Hight C, Torrens R, Cowie B 2017, ‘Introduction: Software and other Literacies’ in Software Literacy: Education and Beyond, Springer, Singapore

 

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

This week I was running out of things to take videos of because doors are pretty much only attached to things that are stationary. So I thought it was time I sat down and had a long think about how to think outside the box. At first I was trying to find a doorway that we pass so often that we forget about it. For example, do you know the feeling of locking your car so often that it becomes second nature, and then just as you’re falling asleep your eyes snap open and you think, ‘did I lock the car?’. The obvious one is the front door but mine isn’t very interesting and I’m trying really hard to find more aesthetically pleasing doorways. So then I thought about the Chinatown threshold, that’s a door right? It is definitely a doorway, a threshold to step across to welcome you into another space? Anyway, I was on my way to hunt down the Chinatown door and an ambulance raced past me, and that’s when I realised that it could be interesting to record the exact opposite of what I was originally thinking. A door that we pass so infrequently that we hardly ever think about it, and if we do, unfortunately, have to pass through it,  there is often so much else going on that thinking about the doorway is definitely not the priority.

I captured this video near the hospitals at St Vincent’s Plaza, and it was very spontaneous, after all that was the intention of the founders, as Systrom is quoted in Manovich (2016,  p.12) ‘Instagram is about producing photos on the go, in the real world, in real-time.’ And of course, as the Ambulance went past my video app on my iPhone SE, wouldn’t open and it was a race against the clock. But in the nick of time it decided to cooperate, and I captured the somewhat, unstable footage. I then uploaded the video from my camera roll to Instagram and then clipped it to a shorter length and applied the ‘Lark’ filter because I think it will allow the video to easily blend into the other tones in my feed. I also shot the video in portrait orientation so moved it up higher in the Instagram editor to show more sky and less road.

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A set of doors on wheels

A post shared by Redefining The Door (@gracegotanotherinsta) on May 19, 2019 at 6:49pm PDT

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

During the authoring stage, I added a City of Melbourne geotag so that when I published the image it would be automatically distributed and available to any Instagram user searching through that geotag. I created a short and long caption, the short caption was published at the time and the longer caption, along with hashtags was published post-authoring. The short caption was simply, ‘ A set of doors on wheels’, outlining the connection to the ‘doors’ prompt. The second, longer caption was a description of how I actually came to the idea of tracking down a set of doors we never notice. In the last 22 hours, the video has had 7 views, which is actually doing better than the last video I posted which has only collected 9 views in an entire week. My most popular photo so far is this week’s photograph of the Fitzroy doorway (see my last post), which has had 13 likes.

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

Distributing this video to Tumblr and Twitter actually proved more difficult than my previous posts. Instagram posted the video to my Tumblr, but it redirected to Instagram and then nothing would load so I’m not sure if it was just me, or something else was going on. Because of this, I needed to open the Tumblr app and try and distribute without Instagram. Except this time, I was asked to choose a 3 second clip from my video to convert into a GIF, I chose the point where the ambulance crosses the sunset. I added a slightly altered set of hashtags, including #sunset, #ambulance, #driving, #melbourne, #australia and #sick, as well as changing the caption to ‘Driving off into the sunset’ because I thought I should experiment with a completely different caption and see what happens. You can find the post here.

I don’t really like the way Tumblr forced my video to be turned into a GIF, because it added quality and time constraints. However, I remember when I used to use Tumblr frequently and videos would never load, they had a serious problem with videos, so perhaps this has been their way of trying to fix this problem. Furthermore, I wasn’t happy with the way my automatic post to Twitter was just a link to my Instagram account, and even when I clicked through the link on the automatically generated tweet it took me to a ‘Page not found’ notification. So I deleted the tweet and reposted with the actual video, and caption without hashtags. Needless to say, the auto-distribution of this week’s video did not go to plan and ended up being quite frustrating and time consuming. This undermines the exact reason for the inclusion of the automatic distribution feature, that being to make the distribution process more quick and simple.

 

My realisation of algorithmic power:

This week, after reading Manovich’s throughts on the disproportionate engagement (Manovich, 2011, p.26) on Instagram and reflecting on my own engagement, it made me realise that the algorithm in itself is an affordance or constraint depending on who you are and your engegment levels. And I did some research on it through sites like this.

We dont actually know how the algorithm works, but at this point we know it has to do with engagment levels and distributing user content depending on what people are going to like, which is often dependent on what other users are engaging with. Thus, it comes full circle and reinforces users, or posts, with high engagement, but also reinforces the low engagement rates of other users who the algorithm will not favour.

So even when it looks as though Instagram allows users to distribute our content across the world, the algorithm is actually determining whether or not it reaches those followers. And even if you use hashtags, whether or not your post performs well will be determined by the algorithm. The more I was thinking abou this, the more I realised that the algorithm is probably stopping me from seeing, and being inspired by, a majority of the content on Instagram.

References:

Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego, USA. (pp. 24-52)

 

 

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Nicest door on Johnson st

A post shared by Redefining The Door (@gracegotanotherinsta) on May 13, 2019 at 4:37pm PDT

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

This week’s photo was exactly what Instagram was built for, spontaneous posting. I was on my way to the supermarket when I saw this awesome old house. I pulled over to take a few photos, it was a wet sunset and it had some great colours coming through. I took it on my iPhone SE and tried to make the photo as straight as possible whilst taking the photo but I ended up needing to straighten it in the Instagram app using the smallest grid, because I really wanted it to be as straight and in line as possible. I brought the brightness down, put the contrast up, increased structure and put the lux up slightly too.

The choice to prioritise a curated feed over experimentation means that I often use the same editing features. As Manovich (2016, p.119) notes, one of the main distinctions between casual and professional photographs is the need to look generative and thematic over time. And I think that if I choose to experiment with filters and colours too much I will end up making a confusing feed.

This week I decided to put a lot more effort into my caption. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision but when I was posting the image it conjured a very specific image of who may live behind that front door. As you will discover, it is either a Fitzroy millennial, who rides their bike everywhere with their keys clipped to their belt loop. Or a little old granny who has lived there since the dawn of time. I found it really fun to explore those images further and attach them to the image posted.

Although, I have realised this week that I should start thinking about how everyone uses Instagram, and how this may be similar or different to my own ways of using Instagram. After all, there are one billion people using this software and I only follow 900 of them, so I need to consider how the other 999,999,100 users use Instagram.

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

I took multiple photos of this doorway with different lighting and different distances between myself and the door. But eventually I edited the 10 photos down to just one. I published the image on Instagram just after authoring, this time it was in the morning as opposed to night, but thus far I don’t think it has made any impact on likes because my following is so small. I used the geotag of Fitzroy, which is much more specific than my previous posts and I hope this specificity will help gain more engagement. I also used more hashtags than previous posts in an effort to experiment to see if more hashtags directly correlates to more likes. Or if those likes are more dependant on the subject matter and aesthetics of the post.

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

I distributed the photo, again, through Tumblr and Twitter. I utilised the in-app distribution options, which make it a lot quicker to post. However, on Tumblr, I altered the caption to say ‘A door in Fitzroy, Melbourne’, because I think many users on Tumblr are much more concerned with the aesthetics of the image over it’s caption and I know no one would read the length caption that accompanied my Instagram post. I also altered the hashtags slightly, using #fitzroy, #melbourne, #boho, #indie, #love and #doorway.  Due the constraints of Twitter in their 280 character limit, I was forced to change the caption for Twitter too, but I used the opportunity to experiment with some in-text hashtags. The tweet was ‘A lovely door in #Fitzroy, #Melbourne, pictured in some classic #MelbourneWeather. I incorporated the Melbourne Weather hashtag because it was suggested to me by Twitter, and seems to be quite a popular hashtag. Furthermore, I added the location to my Tweet, so I will see if this makes any difference to engagement levels.

On another interesting note, to ensure the format of my image matched Twitter I had to do a lot of in-app editing, consequently showing that Twitter has a lot more constraints than Tumblr.

 

References:

Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego, USA, pp. 24-113.

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The most iconic doors in Melbourne

A post shared by Redefining The Door (@gracegotanotherinsta) on May 11, 2019 at 1:08am PDT

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

For my second Instagram this week, I recorded a video of the most iconic doors in Melbourne, the classic PTV Tram. I’ve never posted a video on Instagram before, and next week I think it will be interesting to use the stop-go video recording feature of Instagram, which affords users the ability to easily create one video from multiple clips.

This week, I found it much harder to find an interesting video of a door, until I hopped on the tram and heard the sweet scrape of the PTV doors. I recorded the video on my iPhone SE before uploading it to the Instagram app via the camera roll upload feature. I wanted the video to be quite short, before quickly being told that I was unable to upload a video under 3 seconds to Instagram. So, I took a longer video and decided to include the wait that we all have to endure as the winter wind and rain fly through the tram doors, sitting there thinking ‘just shut that damn door!’.

Anyway, on Instagram I cut the video into a square, although I could’ve posted it in its original vertical format. I played  between mute and sound on but I wanted to capture the noises of public transport. I usually customise my own tones to create a more customised kind of filter, rather than applying a straight filter. However, I found out that this is not actually possible with Instagram videos, and you actually need to select an option from their suite of filters.

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

After authoring I uploaded the video to Instagram with the caption, ‘The most iconic doors in Melbourne’, because in my mind they are probably the most commonly used doors in Melbourne running all hours of the day and night, and weaving their way across the city. I used the Melbourne city tag at the time of publishing too.

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

Once the video was authored and published on Instagram I was able to distribute it through the hashtags used I used in the caption, #melbourne #melbournetrams #melbournelife. I wanted to use different hashtags to my previous post to see if the post would garner any more likes, however I think it may be too early to tell. I also realise that I probably need to use more hashtags if I want them to be effective.

By adding the Melbourne geotag during publication, I am able to (in theory) distribute my post to Instagram users who are not following me, but may be following the geotag or browsing through the posts there.

Despite Instagram obviously offering the in app distribution features, mentioned in the week 10 online lecture, I forgot to distribute my video to other social platforms at the time publication. Instead, I needed to log into Tumblr and Twitter separately, which was much more time consuming and generally frustrating since I forgot my passwords, had to re-download apps and so on. The automatic distribution feature streamlines this process and makes it easier for me to quickly distribute to different social platforms. 

 

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Mum’s favourite doorway. Happy Mother’s Day for Sunday!

A post shared by Redefining The Door (@gracegotanotherinsta) on May 7, 2019 at 2:45am PDT

How did you author photo you recorded for upload to Instagram?

This week our attention turned to authoring, publishing and distributing our own content on Instagram. Instagram is an app which many of us have been using for years to connect with friends, family and content creators who align with our aesthetic or values. And I wanted to try and reflect my prior knowledge in this post.

For this week’s photo I decided to get into the Mother’s Day spirit and asked my mum if I could take a photo of her in front of her favourite doorway in the house. She chose the front door of her home. In order to record this photograph I used the camera inside Instagram for the first time ever because I wanted to experiment a little. I have to say I didn’t like it at all because you can only take one image before Instagram prompts you to edit the photograph. I like recording multiple photographs before deciding on which one is best.

So, I switched back to the camera on my iPhone SE, took multiple photos then picked the best photo inside the Instagram app. I used the smallest grid Instagram offers to ensure the symmetry of my photograph was perfect and adjusted accordingly, to fit the Instagram square. Once I had cropped it correctly, I increased lux to make the colours pop, I turned brightness down slightly and colour graded the image shadows blue to give it a cool tone.

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

I published the image on Instagram to my new account and it was the first photo so it looks very out of place. I published it with a caption which reads “Mum’s favourite doorway. Happy Mother’s Day for Sunday!”, with a star-eyes emoji. After I published the image, I added the hashtags #home, #village, #melbourne, #mum in the comments and then the next day added #mothersday and #happymothersday.

I authored and publish this image in line with Mother’s day on the 12th of May, because I wanted the content on this account to go beyond being a stagnant assignment. I want this account to entwine with the real world and respond to events and interact with my friends and family in the same way a real instagram account does. I think this will help the account reflect the connective, creative and social environment of Instagram, which has inspired people to be creative when capturing everyday moments through the lens of their iPhone (Manovich, 2016, p. 12).

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

To distribute this photograph I used the Melbourne geotag, which allows the image to be seen by anyone on Instagram who searches for and looks through the Melbourne geotag. The hashtags I used, which I mentioned earlier, have been used in the same way, so that the image can be seen by any Instagram user who has searched for and is looking through the hashtag. I used the Mother’s Day hashtag to do just this as Mother’s Day is approaching, which means there would be traffic. These are both ways of distributing the image I authored and published to people who are not following me and allowing them to engage with the image.

I also distributed my image to Tumblr, but not through the Instagram app. Once I had exported the Instagram image, I uploaded it into the Tumblr app which encouraged me to edit the image, however I has already done this through Instagram so there was no need. Due to the constraints of the Tumblr app I deleted the caption because it broke up my blog page but kept the hashtags, which need to be entered separately due to the format of the software. I also added the hashtags #doorway, #favourite, #boho and #mother.

I posted straight to Twitter from Instagram and the hashtags translated across so it was all very easy. This week my use of Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter showed me that Instagram and Twitter are more compatible than Instagram and Tumblr are. I also feel that my content doesn’t match the format of Tumblr in the same way it does matches Twitter. It has made me realise that both Instagram and Twitter can be used as Manovich said, in a way to capture everyday life through the camera lens on your phone (Manovich, 2016, p. 12). This is in contrast to Tumblr which, I believe, is a much more highly curated, post-production driven site weighted more towards artistic photography rather than the everyday posting and strong connection to immediate friends and family that Instagram boasts.

My Instagram photo distributed on Twitter:

My Instagram photo on my Tumblr Blog

And finally how the image looks on the Tumblr site

References:

Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego, USA, pp.9-18

Who is the practitioner and when were they practicing?

The practitioner I have chosen is filmmaker and photographer, Foster Huntington. During his education, he started a blog called Restless Transparent, where he posted photos of camping and surf trips. In 2009, he was approached by Ralph Lauren which kick started his career in photography and film making (O’Malley, 2013). However, in 2014, he and some friends built tree houses in the mountains in Columbia River Gorge, Washington State. He told Monster Children that ‘It’s one thing to travel all the time and take photos, but video requires more infrastructure’ (Abada, 2017). I thought this was an interesting idea, because as pointed out by Halpern and Humphreys (2014, p.1) the emergence of the iPhone has meant videos can be uploaded straight from a device onto networks, creating a more accessible and mobile form of video. However, Huntington’s stop motion endeavours aren’t that quick and easy and must be shot and edited offline before they can be uploaded. 

What is the title of the video you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)  

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POOL SCUM EPISODE 1: THE SHOW DOWN!!! Here's the first episode of #poolscum. I'll be posting the next episode mañana, but if you want to peep what happens next head over to @moviemountain. #poolscum

A post shared by Foster Huntington (@fosterhunting) on Oct 16, 2017 at 1:39pm PDT

With the video you are examining when was it produced (date)?

The video was produced in 2017 and is a stop motion film depicting the laid back lifestyle of ‘pool scum’, skateboarders who seem to perpetually hang around an old Californian pool, repurposed as a skate bowl. The short 4 minute film follows the pool scum as they compete against each other and perform tricks to different music. The video is shot vertically for the format of Instagram, and due to the nature of the stop motion would have been completely edited in post-production. The caption reads ‘POOL SCUM EPISODE 1: THE SHOWDOWN!!! Here’s the first episode of #poolscum. I’ll be posting the next episode mañana, but if you want to peep what happens next head over to @moviemountain. #poolscum’

How was the video authored?

Huntington specialises in DIY stop motion, he and his team create rough and raw characters with charm before setting up rigs to hold them in place whilst they take each individual shot. In post production, these shots are edited together to create a self-aware home-video aesthetic.

Whilst Huntington could not have authored the film on Instagram he did author the film to conform to Instagram. The film is shot vertically in order to conform to the constraints of Instagram, because Huntington knew he wanted it to publish it on Instagram before he started. Huntington uses hashtags in the caption as well as tagging the production team’s Instagram.

How was the video published?

Huntington knew he wanted to publish his videos on Instagram, noting that  ‘everyone just assumes, without really thinking about it, that social media is a platform for nonfiction: “this is my life, this is what i do, these are my travels.” Well why can’t it be made up stuff too?’ (Abada, 2017).

The video was published on his Instagram account (@fosterhunting ) on 17 October 2017, as well as being published on the Movie Mountain Instagram, the Movie Mountain YouTube and Huntington’s Vimeo account that same day, with the title ‘Pool Scum Episodes 1-3’. A teaser video was also published to the Movie Mountain Twitter and Facebook pages in the lead up to release. The major difference that I can see is that the episodes 1-3 of Pool Scum are posted as one video on YouTube. The constraints of Instagram mean that Huntington posted episodes 1 – 3 of Pool Scum as separate posts on October 17, 18 and 19 respectively.

However, Instagram, YouTube and Vimeo also afforded Huntington publication platforms where his content could be published to generate a profit. This would not have been the case in the times of analogue video because television and film corporations would determine what was shown on TV or in the cinema, and would only invest in that video if it would generate a profit margin. I think that Huntington’s use of video publishing on these platforms is a great example of how video and other media content can be published and engaged with by individuals without the constraints of profitability. However, it is important to note that there still may be some interference base on Instagram’s algorithms.

How was the video distributed?

The video has been distributed across multiple platforms and therefore will have reached a much larger audience than distributing on one channel. It was easy to find the videos many months after I originally saw it, through Monster Children. The affordances of instagram in its visual tile format allowed me to scroll back through the Monster Children account, to find where they had tagged Foster Huntington. I could then scroll through his posts to find the video. I was also able to find the Movie Mountain Instagram through this tagging which creates a traceable network between accounts and users.

The use of the #poolsum hashtag distributes the video to more Instagram users who may not already be following Huntington or Movie Mountain. And whilst the hashtag shows many re-distributions by fans it also shows real life ‘pool scum’ (i.e. people skating in pools). This allows Huntington’s work of fiction to effortlessly merge into the non-fiction posts authored, published and distributed in Instagram.

On 17 October 2018, Movie Mountain re-distributed Pool Scum in a gallery format, to their followers. Furthermore, almost three years later, the film continues to be redistributed by fans and Instagram users.

The nature of Instagram and many other social media platforms means that the publication and distribution of online media is very closely linked – as the user publishes it, it becomes distributed to followers instantly.

References:

Abada, A 2017, ‘Pool Scum: Foster Huntington’s stop motion skate movie’, Monster Children, 17 October 2017, viewed 31 April 2018, <https://www.monsterchildren.com/65520/watch-foster-huntingtons-stop-motion-skate-movies/>

O’Malley, P 2013, ‘Foster Huntington Stopped Working for the Man and Started Living in a Van’, Vice, 11 October 2013, viewed 31 April 2018, <https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/gq8gvb/talking-surfing-and-vans-with-Foster-huntington>

Halpern, M & Humpreys, L 2014, ‘iPhoneography as an emergent art world’, New Media Society, vol. 18, no. 1, pp.62-81.

Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?

Hannes Becker is a German freelance photographer who specialises in documenting outdoor adventures and landscapes. Becker has been practicing professional photography since 2014, and for the past five years he has been using Instagram to share his passion and works, whilst gaining 1.3 million Instagram followers.

What is the title of the photo  you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)  

The photo I have chosen is called ‘Preikestolen’

View this post on Instagram

Taking carefully steps at the edge of Preikestolen.. #followinglight #norway

A post shared by Hannes Becker (@hannes_becker) on Sep 22, 2018 at 9:54am PDT

With the photo you are examining when was it produced (date)?

Preikestolen was posted to Instagram by Becker on the 23rd of September 2018, but presumably was produced some time before, because the photo was taken on a DSLR and uses his own editing software. Despite networked photography making this process much easier and faster (Palmer, 2014), Instagram also creates an environment where popular profiles need to create posting schedules ahead of time, creating a more curated and less spontaneous publishing process for popular accounts. 

How was the photo authored?

The photo was taken on a DSLR before Becker posted it on Instagram. Becker uses a suite of editing software to softly enhance the photo through colour grading. This adds a deeper mood to his works and creates a thematic colouring, consistent with his Instagram gallery. This authoring enables his Instagram profile feed to appear more curated and cohesive, reflecting his style as an author and the importance of a curated aesthetic on Instagram, which exists to make and distribute aesthetic and unusual images (Palmer, 2014, p.245).  

In a strange turn of events, Becker’s camera phone inspired him into get into photography and editing, and yet as he continued on his path he turned back to the slightly more traditional medium of DSLR. This switch allowed him to author higher quality images, which in turn lead to a career creating adventurous and aesthetic content. If he had kept taking photos on his iPhone would he have ever made the career he has? This shows that even though camera phones ‘represent something new in the history of photography’ (Palmer, 2014). It could be argued that just because it is ‘new’ it may not necessarily better, just more accessible and perhaps a stepping stone in the photographic profession.

How was the photo published?

The photo was first published on Becker’s Instagram account on the 23rd of September 2018, and it was also published on his website at around the same time. Becker authors his photos on a DSLR for quality purposes, but it is important to note that he publishes them on Instagram through his smart phone. Halpern and Humphreys (2014, p.7) highlight that the ease of  publishing photos is one of elements that ‘made the iPhone a “revolutionary” tool for photography’.

Out of curiosity, I scrolled down to the bottom of his profile to his first published posts. His early content from 2014 leaves something to be desired. The harsh, original Instagram filters and borders cast an amateur lense on his record of the mundane world. However, they also provide an insight into the process that many online publishers go through to understand how to build a following on Instagram. He has always published landscape content but has transitioned through phases; from the harsh, standard instagram filters snapped on his iPhone, to the intensely sharpened images of urban scenes. He then shifted more towards snow landscapes with softer filters, before transitioning into brightly saturated photos, of a higher quality, taken on DSLR and with a more distinct aesthetic. Finally, he arrived at his current theme, using dark filters to reflect the dramatic and moody landscapes, with colour grading which is more unique to his work.

Becker’s account is a great example of how online photographic authors publish content according to what is most popular to audiences. As well as how Instagram’s tiled format is used to publish digital galleries of photographs.

1. Becker’s First posts, using Instagram filters and borders to capture everyday occurrences.

2. Becker’s intermediate posts, still relying on Instagram’s suite of filters, more curated and thematic content

3. Becker’s current feed, highly curated, high engagement, strong use of personalised filters applied in post production.

How is the photo distributed?

In line with the nature of Instagram, the photo was distributed to his 1.3 million followers through the platform and its algorithms. By using hashtags (#followinglight and #Norway) as well as a Norway geotag, Becker distributed his photo to a much larger audience of Instagram users who may not have been following him. The photo was then re-distributed, along with many of his works, through reposters, who then tag him and add hashtags to incite conversation and showcases the generative nature of Instagram and other social media platforms.  

Despite not being able to find any information on the Becker’s posts topic, it is important to mention that Instagram users, like Becker, can also distribute their content through sponsored ads which can reach a huge audience. Instagram ads can be tailored to target specific ages, genders, geographical areas and interests based on the amount of ad spend invested by the distributor.

After being published and distributed on Instagram, Becker put the photo up for sale as a print on his website.

References:

Halpern, M & Humpreys, L 2014, ‘iPhoneography as an emergent art world’, New Media Society, vol. 18, no. 1, pp.62-81.

Palmer, 2014, ‘Mobile Photography’, in G Goggin and L Hjorth (eds), The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media, 1st edition, Routledge, Abingdon, UK, pp. 244-254.

 

Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?

Nam June Paik (1932-2006) was a Korean American artist who pioneered video art. Paik trained as a classical pianist for most of his life before moving to West Berlin to pursue his interest in avante garde music, composition and performance. During his time in Germany, Paik met John Cage (american composer, artist and music theorist) and became associated with the Neo-dada Fluxus movement. Through Cage, Paik met Marcel DuChamp both of who are said to have had a huge influence on on Paik and stimulated his rise in the avante garde through performance.

What is the title of the photo or video you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)  

The title of the video I have chose is ‘Electric Opera #1’ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/arts-culture/artist-nam-june-paiks-electronic-opera-1/

With the video you are examining, when was it produced (date)?

Nam June Paik created this video in 1969. 

How was the video authored?

The video was authored by Paik in 1969 by manipulating, distorting and saturating the recorded figures of three hippies, a topless dancer and various political figures (such as Richard Nixon). Paik uses a voice overs to inform the audience that the video is “participation TV” and commands the audience to open and close their eyes at various individuals.

How was the video published?

The video was published as an analogue television signal. Analogue video and television is highly reliant on physical objects in our world (Lister et al, 2009, p. 19), such as cables, aerials, television monitors, a constant power supply and so on. This means there are many points at which the signal be be interfered with. The notion of interference became central to Paik’s work as he makes the audience question whether the signal has encountered interference or if it was a stylistic choice of the artist.

I can’t find any specific publication details but the video would probably have been originally published on an analogue television in an art gallery during an exhibition. I also can’t find details about whether or not it is currently on display, however the Nam June Paik Art Centre opened in Seoul, South Korea in 2008 and houses many of his works (Guggenheim, 2018).

How was the video distributed?

Along with many of his other works, Paik’s work is still being distributed and circulated in many art galleries around the world (Guggenheim, 2019). Paik has been involved and incorporated in numerous exhibitions, including two major retrospectives and has been featured in international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale (Guggenheim, 2019). Since its release in 1969 the video has been distributed through numerous museum sites as well as platforms like YouTube and Vimeo.

References:

Guggenheim 2019, Nam June Paik, viewed 21 April 2018, Guggenheim Collection Online, <https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/nam-june-paik>

Lister, M, Dovey, J, Giddings, S, Grant, I & Kelly, K 2009, New Media: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, New York.

“Photographs are no longer rare artifacts, nor primarily a means of learning about the exotic or unknown. They arrive instantaneously on our phones every day from every corner of the world and from all kinds of people. With a smartphone, everyone is a photographer, and images compete for crowd approval on social media channels like Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook.” ~ New York Times

Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?

Henri Cartier Bresson (1908-2004)

What is the title of the photo or video you have chosen to analyse (can you provide a link?)  

Title: Palermo (Boy with Wheel)

Where: Palermo, Sicily, Italy

When: 1971

https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2011/PAR/2011_PAR_01048_0033_000(henri_cartier-bresson_palerme_italie_1971).jpg

With the photo you are examining when was it produced (date)?

This photograph was taken in Palermo Italy in 1971.

How was the photo authored?

This photo was taken on black and white, 35mm film using an analogue camera. Cartier-Bresson was known for his love of Leica cameras, whose quality became characteristic of his work. Cartier-Bresson formulated the idea of ‘The Decisive Moment’, that is – the singular moment in which the photographer has the opportunity to capture a photograph that accurately reflects the time, place and culture (Zanon & Sabbag, 2017).

Cartier-Bresson inadvertently became the pioneer of photojournalism, but considered himself a surrealist artist, because he considered photography an art. It is said that he would search for a visually stimulating area that would create a good composition and wait for his ‘decisive moment’ to occur (The New York Times, 2016).

Cartier-Bresson was mainly concerned with the human condition, but only if he could reflect it candidly. His small 35mm Leica, which he often covered in tape, allowed him to do this. Many people argue that the small size of camera phones allows them to capture intimate moments, because the subject is not influenced by the size of a professional camera. Despite the fact that the devices we use to author film photos are vastly different to the camera phones we use to capture digital photos, it is in a similar way that Cartier-Bresson and his small Leica managed to capture and author these moments inconspicuously. 

This photograph is an example of his obsession to capture the human condition, the photograph is shot diagonally, and in the foreground two boys play with, and chase, an old bicycle wheel. Behind them a line of traffic is forming, a large black hearse dominates the background. In this moment, Cartier-Bresson captures the two defining characteristics of the human condition, life and death. The two young boys happily play with the bicycle wheel, running in the opposite direction to the hearse, and completely unaware. This is a jarring dichotomy, which forces the audience to become aware of the transience of life the fragility of the human condition.

The photo, along with all of Cartier-Bresson’s work is an example of analogue photography. Lister et al (2009) define ‘analogue’ as the “…processes in which one set of physical properties can be stored in another ‘analogous’ physical form. The latter is then subjected to technological and cultural coding that allows the original properties to be, as it were, reconstituted for the audience”.

How was the photo published?

According to Christie’s (2019) this photograph was taken in 1971 and printed in 1990. It is a Gelatin silver print, which are developed in dark rooms. When an analogue film camera captures a photo, the shutter opens for a split second, which allows light to pass through the lense, this light is reflected onto film which is a light sensitive plastic. This film is developed in a dark room, which is lit with red light so that you can see what you’re doing without destroying the film. In the dark room, the film moves through a series of chemicals from developer, to stop bath and then fixer. This creates a film negative, which can have light shined through it in order to cast the photo onto light sensitive paper which creates a positive print (Woodford, 2018).

Developing the photographs is a huge part of analogue photography, because the photographs cannot be seen, published or distrubted, and for many this is one of the most exciting things about film. However, Cartier-Bresson did not enjoy developing his own photographs and was also averse to any enhancement to images after the photograph had been taken. 

How was the photo distributed?

Because of the mediums available at the time this photograph would have only been distributed through print media. I can’t find the specific time or place, however the photographer has had many exhibitions across the world and and many books, both before and after the publication of this photo (Magnum Photos, 2018). furthermore, the photograph would most likely have been shown in an exhibition after its publication or in one of his books.

More recently, this image has been published online online by Magnum Photos (the photography agency he helped found). Christie’s distributed an image of the photo online as a signed print was up for auction. These two representations of the photo have been re-distributed online through Pinterest, Artnet and Google Images.

In the same way a watch is a representation of time, I see photos, particularly analogue, as a representation of time and place. There are a number of characteristic elements to photos that provide a snapshot into the time and place –  the style and kind of buildings, what people may be wearing, the quality of the device and the photo produced. All of these characteristic provide insight into how the photograph was authored and published, as well as how it may be distributed.

 

REFERENCES:
Lister, M et al 2009, New Media: A Critical Introduction, Routledge, New York, p.17

Zanon, W.R & Sabbag D.M.A 2017, ‘Henri Cartier Bresson’s Decisive Instante and Indexation: An Exploratory Study of Photography and INdexing Methods’, Digital Journal of Library and Information Science, vol.15(3), pp.639-714.

Christie’s 2019, 100 photographies provenant de la Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Christie’s, viewed 5 April 2019, <https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/henri-cartier-bresson-1908-2004-palerme-italie-1971-5494214-details.aspx>  

The New York Times 2016, ‘Henri Cartier-Bresson, Whose “Decisive Moment” Shaped Modern Photography’, The New York Times, 3 August, viewed 5 April 2019, <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/obituaries/archives/henri-cartier-bresson-photography>

Woodford, C 2018, Film Cameras and 35mm Photography, Explain That Stuff, viewed 5 April 2019,<https://www.explainthatstuff.com/how-film-cameras-work.html>

Magnum Photos 2018, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Photographers, viewed 6 April 2019, <https://www.magnumphotos.com/photographer/henri-cartier-bresson/>