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.

DOORS QUOTES // POST FIVE

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

Upon knowing my task for this assignment was to post door related content, I knew I would eventually struggle with what ‘types’ of doors to post. Doors are everywhere, yet not many stand out. You seem to forget that door’s can be seen differently and found in the most mundane circumstances. Hence, this led to this week’s video of elevator doors. Elevator’s can be/are utilised in film in extraordinary ways. The doors themselves opening and shutting can lead to lots of experimental shot construction. I was inspired in the moment as I caught this elevator opening out onto level six on my iPhone 8 rear facing camera. As I knew I didn’t have much time to focus the shot, I centred myself as best as I could and pressed record. This video was actually captured the week before this one as I went up to class, once again generating most of my material in and around RMIT. Being in an elevator, especially with people, you are heavily constrained to how you can record a video. For instance if I was in front of the girl shown in the frame, it would have made the situation, for me personally, very awkward. Luckily I was behind her and had two classmates with me who understood what I was trying to achieve. The actual frame of this video was a lot longer than what it appears now on Instagram. I believe that during editing, the video must have got cut in size somehow. Speaking of editing, for this week’s video I followed the same technique I used last week: the film aesthetic. I achieved this through the same application titled “Chromic.” I knew that the Instagram app filter’s were going to look incredibly mundane on this dark grey elevator and I absolutely loved how the ‘FMO’ filter looked on last week’s video. This filter also created a red glow on the doors which I found to look a lot more appealing. Other than that, I didn’t edit this video in any other way. This video was strictly one shot, basically due to the timing of the elevator doors not being in my favour, and level six was my stop to get off. I wasn’t given a better opportunity to film other elevator doors without strangers overcrowding the shot or making me feel too uncomfortable to whip my iPhone out and film. Once again, I really liked the automatically chosen cover photo for this video (surprise, surprise). I really liked how the girl is seen to the side of the frame, yet the doors still remain the subject of the shot. Lastly, I couldn’t mute the video even if I wanted to as the audio adds so much to the content itself. It just gives viewers something more than just “noise” which is reflective of what my other videos have been like.

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

For this week’s caption I wrote: “”A very little key will open a very heavy door.” – Charles Dickens.” When I found this quote by Dickens I was super excited, not only because I have studied his work, but because elevator doors are in fact heavy. There goes my idea of not relating the quotes directly to the imagery. Last week’s video did well in terms of likes and I believe that was due to the use of more hashtags. So, this week I decided to follow the same formula and add as many as I could think of in the moment of publishing. I ended up with fifteen in the end and the video received a bit of love. I also posted this video a lot later in the day when normally I post early afternoon. This would have meant users in my geographical area (Melbourne) would have been more active. In terms of picking this video to publish, I had to make changes to the length of the video itself. At the end of the original video, I laughed which obviously ruined it and caused a distraction. When publishing, I used the trim tool to cut away the laugh and have it end right after you hear “level six.” I have added the original video below to show the difference.

ORIGINAL VIDEO

(I apologise that you have to download the file, it wouldn’t embed).

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

Last week I mentioned that I would aim to try and do more in regards to adding hashtags to my posts on Twitter and Tumblr. A limitation of the toggle sharing affordance on Instagram is how as a user you aren’t able to add tags or captions to those posts. Instead, you are forced to do so in the actual Twitter or Tumblr app AFTER publication. So, I went forth and added hashtags to my Twitter post, which ended up resulting in 34 impressions. The actual tweet with the tags included racked up 20 impressions. This is quite an increase in regard to how my other tweets were tracking. On Tumblr there were no interactions (from what I know of). As always I added the location on top of my post, this time geo-tagging RMIT University as my location.