April’s Instagram

My favourite photo of mine on Instagram in April

My enjoyment of using Instagram is continuing to grow and grow.  Using it to both publicise my button jewellery as well as show my photography and life is something I take great pleasure in.  Add in the lovely feel of community I get interacting with my fellow crafters, seeing all the amazing photographs out there and getting to have a general nosey into the life of others and…well…I think I have finally found the social media for me.

Having followed an Instagram challenge in March (click here for the #marchmeetthemaker summary), I did approach April a little concerned – would I lose focus, struggle to find photos to put on every day, run out of ideas?  Thankfully these fears proved groundless.  I love finding things to include on my feed and seeing what gets responses from others on there.  The photos that for me got the biggest responses this month were these two:

New business card design

Nippori station, Tokyo – our old local station

Okay we are still talking small numbers…everyone has to start somewhere though!

I am experimenting with my feed at the moment and trying to use either the same or similar filter for all my photos.  I kind of like the effect (what do you think?) although I am finding that what works for my more general photos doesn’t always work for all photos especially my product ones.  I think I will try this for a while longer and then maybe try a different approach.

To finish off today, here are a few of my favourite photos from my Instagram feed last month.  To see more, why not head over to Instagram and follow me there!

A few of my Instagram highlights for April

MarchMeetTheMaker on Instagram

 

Having initially been very reluctant to join Instagram, I am now completely in love with it as a platform and hopefully as a way of marketing my little shop.  I used to view it as something used by beautiful and young people who particularly liked sharing photos of their food.  Towards the end of last year though I had a look and realised it is so much more.  Being someone who loves photography of many different types, Instagram opens up a whole world to me of inspiration, enjoyment and community.

Partly to improve my Instagram photography and to encourage my creativity, partly in start engaging more with the creative community on Instagram, I have joined in with #marchmeetthemaker set up by Joanne Hawker.  I thought it would be good to do a half term ‘report’ on my involvement so far.  It has obviously done me some good as I have increased from 49 followers at the end of February to 96 today…only 4 away from 100!

Day 1: Brand image

Day 2: You

Day 3: Workspace

Day 4: Tools

Day 5: Can’t live without

Day 6: Raw Materials

Day 7: How and why?

Day 8: Where

Day 9: Goals

Day 10: Favourite small business

Day 12: First ever sale

Day 13: Feedback

Day 14: Creative friends

Day 15: Inspiration

 

Day 11: Post run was my first attempt at a time lapse video – I have discovered a new love I think!

Dogwood Catch UP

Time for a catch up on my progress in the Dogwood 52 challenge.  I have been taking the photos…just not had the time to blog about it having been very busy with the Etsy Resolution programme.

The photo above was my selected photo for week 5 Black and White Landscape.  I love black and white photography so was really looking forward to this week.  The weather was (yet again) terrible here in Cumbria and my potential ideas for photos didn’t happen.  In the end I took this one on a stroll to my local tearooms where I take my work sometimes for a change of scenery.

Week 4 was a headshot portrait.  I really don’t like taking photos of people and as a result I am not too great at it.  This photo was a little bit of a ‘just get something done’ type of photo – still I did learn from it and I suppose that is the point of taking part in this challenge.

I am still waiting for inspiration to strike for week 6: Candy.  There was so many brilliant ideas and photos appearing on the Facebook group – everything I thought seemed rubbish in comparison.  So I have put that one on the back burner for now to come back to later.

The challenge for week 7 was a faceless portrait to show the story of someone or something without showing their face.  Unlike last week, I had an idea this week which I was rather pleased with.  I played around with flash lighting this week and although maybe my idea was better than the execution, I am still pleased with my photo this week.

And so I am up to date with my Dogwood photos on the blog! (lets ignore week 6 for now…and the current week…)