- How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
For week 9 I decided to only use the Instagram application itself to capture and edit the photo/video works to see how it impacts the final outcome.
The type of smartphone I used to take the photo is a Samsung Galaxy S9 that has a 12 Megapixel rear camera. To capture the photo I wanted the whole door to be in frame, therefore working with a square format I had to move my body backwards away from the door in order to fit it all in frame. Whilst usually with a portrait format in a normal photo taken by the camera app on the phone, I wouldn’t have had to do this. After getting the shot that I wanted, I then was prompted by Instagram to add filters and adjustments to the photo. I adjusted the photo by rotating it slightly so that the door was perfectly straight. I adjustment the contrast, structure, warmth and added a vignette and tilt shift. A tilt shift adds a slight blur around the chosen subject in a photo. In the photo above I added a vertical tilt shift to draw my audience’s attention to the door itself and not anything else in the frame.
The differences I noticed in this authoring process is that you can be limited in some aspects but due to the simple nature of the process it may be efficient. Depending on your purpose, you may find that it takes you longer to get the shot you need because of some of the constraints of the camera within the Instagram app itself. For example you cannot take a portrait style photo within the Instagram camera but you can take a portrait photo on the devices camera app and then upload that photo to Instagram. However for this assignment we were restricted to use of the Instagram applications on its own.
2. How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
When publishing the above photo, it only took me about 5-10 minutes to capture the photo. I knew what I wanted the image to look like exactly so I had a clear vision. I chose to not add a location tag to my photo as the contents of my photo is very personal. This is the front door to my house so for obvious privacy reasons I do not feel comfortable even tagging a suburb and publishing it online. I added a caption “Lucky door No. 1” for the mere fact that the door has a metal number one on it. The caption I came up with reminds me of those old gameshows that used to have contestants guess the correct door to win a prize, but if chosen wrong they got a pity prize for being on the show. I kind of like the idea of no truly knowing what is behind any door (unless it is made of glass). We don’t know what we are stepping into each and every day and thats scary but somewhat exciting.
3. How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
I distributed the Instagram post to a twitter and tumblr account which both were extremely quick and simple. I shared my photo after I had already posted it on Instagram, however Instagram allows you to share to other platforms straight away right before posting the initial photo to Instagram. I went on the post I wanted to share and pressed the share button which automatically gives you a number of other platforms to share with. Twitter being the third option down, I selected it and it opened up the Twitter app and all I had to do was add another caption or tags if I wanted or simply press share, which in this case I did. Instagram have made distributing so easy between different social media platforms so if you do interact with more than one platform you don’t need to spend hours editing the same photo to just post it on another platform.