- How did you author the photo you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I authored this photo on my iPhone 6S’s camera with the basic camera function available originally. The camera function is designed smartly to make it become as easy as possible to use. It doesn’t require any special skill or instruction to take a photo. I just need to swipe left to quickly open the camera app and take photos on spot whenever I see a worthy moment. For people who don’t know that quick trick, they still always easy to spot a little camera icon in the lock screen. I normally take photos of other people or surrounding more than myself and the front camera is quicker, has higher quality and suitable for that. The camera function also allow me to zoom in if I want to take photos of something far away but the quality of the picture will be decreased so I will try to get closer if possible instead. When taking the photo, I did not use flash but I use filter to adjust the color after that. The filter I chose for my photo was J2 Minimalist and it wasn’t come from Instagram app itself but from VSCOcam app, a popular photography app. The reason I chose VSCOcam to edit my photo’s color is because of the great range of beautiful professional color available, much more flexible than the limited filter choices of Instagram. But I do not use pre-made filters all the time. Sometimes I love adjusting the brightness, constrast, fade,…by my self or applying the color filter then adjust other HSL tools slightly. But I still do it with VSCOcam app most of the time instead of Instagram due to the variety of choices.
The biggest differences in authoring this photo, using the Instagram app, compared to using the real camera is the ability to edit photos immediately after that.
2. How did you publish the photo you recorded for upload to Instagram?
I took the many different photos before I chose one to post. Not just for this week’s post, I do that all the time when I take photos. I normally take multiple, choose the most perfect one then head to VSCOcam to adjust the color before publishing. The factors I based on to decide which images to keep and which to delete are lighting, composition, the moment, details and color. I did not add a location before I upload this photo, simply because I don’t have a habit of adding location or hashtag in a post. Sometimes I still add a location and a text caption in my image though but not often. And all that works need be done before I click on the publish button.
3. How did you distribute the photo you published on Instagram to other social media services?
To be honest, I rarely distribute the photo I published on Instagram to other social media platforms. First, because I find that’s useless for me. I don’t sell anything online and I’m not an influencer so I don’t need everyone in all my social media platforms to know what I post. But since this assignment specifically requires me to do that, I did and the process was quite easy. When I click on the photo, there is a share button which allow me to share to Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, email or copy URL to share in other platforms. Although I personally don’t use this feature much, I can understand how powerful it is in helping people to connect and share their post widely.
“Millions of people around the world today use digital tools and platforms to create and share sophisticated cultural artifacts” (Manovich, 2016)
References
Manovich, L 2016, Instagram and the Contemporary Image, University of San Diego.