https://www.instagram.com/p/CAMuPoFp1hr/

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

I chose to take a photo of my Buzz Lightyear Star Command pinball machine that I got when I was a kid because I felt it represented good design. Children toys often break and are made cheaply going for a more quantity over quality approach, knowing the usage habits of their intended demographic. However, this machine, even though still made of fairly cheap plastic, has lasted for many years and is still in very good condition (plus I have kept it in it’s box for a couple of years). It also fills quite a unique hole in the pinball market. It’s desk appropriate size situates between ultra cheap handheld pinball machines like these and expensive full size pinball machines like this. Although a desktop pinball machine toy, it still has useful features. On the backboard it has lights, a speaker that plays it’s theme music and sound effects whenever you hit one of the five bumpers and the whole machine is covered in Buzz Lightyear decals which all affords an immersive experience. It also has two-stories for the pinball to travel in and three paddles on each side that are controlled with one button per side. It also has a score reset button and a screen similar to an alarm clock from the 80’s that affords score keeping.

I took this photo on my Google Pixel 2 attached to a tripod so I could have my hands in the photo. I took the photo in the camera app so I could put on a timer. Once I pressed the shutter button I had three seconds to shoot the pinball out and get my hands in position. Setting up the shot on a tripod and staging it correctly was similar to other photography I have done, however I was able to do the editing in the Instagram app and on the same device that I took the photo on, which isn’t usually the case with photography. On the Instagram app I changed the structure to 53, which seemed to make the image a little bit grainy which made the photo look as if it was taken on an older camera. I also upped the warmth to 52, saturation to 47 and added a linear tilt shift parallel to the pinball machine. I did these corrections to make the photo seem as if it was actually taken when I was a child and to add a sense of nostalgia, especially with the warmth and saturation corrections.

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

I took three photos of the pinball machine but spent a bit of time lining up each shot on the tripod before starting the timer. Out of the three photos I chose this one as I liked the position where my hands were and the motion of the pinball, which you can see towards the top of the machine. I added the caption “High score!” along with the hashtags #pinball and #buzzlightyear as well as an arcade joystick emoji. I decided not to tag anybody and didn’t include a location.

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

The hashtags #pinball and #buzzlightyear help with distribution as when people are to search for those hashtags they would find my image. If I did include a location tag this would also help with distribution. I also uplaoded the image to Reddit and Twitter. On Reddit I uploaded the image to the r/oldschoolcool subreddit with the caption “High score!”  along with the arcade joystick emoji. I decided to upload the image to Twitter from the Instagram app by turning on the “Share to Twitter” option.  This automatically uploads the video to Twitter at the same time as Instagram. It doesn’t actually upload the image but rather the caption with a link to the Instagram post. I believe that this is more of a Twitter issue rather than an Instagram issue and could potentially be done on purpose by Twitter as a way to force users into uploading directly to Twitter rather than using Instagram. Although on Twitter the image is displayed as a link, there are chrome extensions and third party Twitter apps available that allow the image from Instagram to be displayed rather than a link, affording a more streamlined user experience.