Instagram’s been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve felt stuck in a rut, not happy with my content and unsure of my direction…

Cohesive colour

Content curating

There’s a lot of light and bright in the blogger world and while I love this style and have mainly created images in this vein, I’ve often find myself drawn to more somber, moodier, darker accounts. I also find the photography more interesting to look at. A new camera with whizzy settings  is letting me experiment with this in camera, rather than in post-editing and it’s a really interesting process. The goal is to create an aesthetic that unifies your pictures in their gallery.

Even Sophie Ellis-Bextor in her recent Kim Kardashian Instagram experiment (she had to copy Kim’s photos for a week!) found that her  followers liked seeing more of her. And someone I met recently said she’s loved getting to know me better since I’ve posted more of myself in recent times. The rub is good pictures of yourself really need to be taken by someone else, so suddenly the photography is no longer yours which is weird. Tripod & self portraits are, of course, the answer if you don’t have an Insta husband or wife but trust me, can be pretty time consuming. However, at least you have full control of the image. I find the processes two very separate things, and I don’t think I’ll truly find peace with it all until I can reconcile pictures of the other and of myself under the same umbrella. But the problem is I can’t see myself in a picture or as a picture the way I see other things. (Amend: I can see parts of myself in a photo though, like the shot above.) I thought it interesting to read from Laetetia recently that she plans to spend more time behind than in front of the camera from now on, the thought of which is very enticing to me. But then, if you’re into clothes and style how else best to share style than on yourself? And I do love all the interaction that comes with it – thankyou for all the lovely chat on Instagram! I think this will continue to be unresolved for me. I’m not a blogger model type – I find posing hard and I find getting shots of myself a struggle – plus I am the principle photographer for this site, so uh, hmmm… Might have to come back to you on this.

I used to poo-poo these and not bother. But recently I’ve noticed accounts seeming to have great success with these. Made easier by the related hashtags that run across the top of the page when you click through on one. The goal is to make it into the selected top 9 to gain traction. A mystical Instagram algorithm is behind this, something to do with speed of likes within certain times, not just number of likes, though it does often seem to be the really big accounts who feature. Anyway, I’m testing this out.

| Post at busy times. I used to think this was just lunchtime and after work. But first thing, between 7-8.30am and late evening at 10.30pm have been working really well for me. Friday all afternoon too! Also despite the so-called weekend abyss, I find weekends work just fine.

| Post a nice combination of pictures, mixing up detailed, negative space, busy and not busy shots for a nice balance.

| Look at the first and third picture when deciding whether your next picture will work as these will be adjacent to your latest post.

| Browse and delete to make your gallery work better. I often do delete – if a colour is jarring, or composition doesn’t balance well – to make my top nine ‘quilt’ look as best as it can.

| Do think about your caption. Try and give it more than just face value. A little humour goes down a treat. As does sharing something about your day.

| When shooting top down, make sure your phone/camera lens is angled really flat to get the best looking shot.

So to get out of my rut, I’m trying out a new style of photography (darker and moodier, less soft and bright), being harder on myself and trying to post only those shots I know are absolutely right. Plus working harder on my captions. Theme wise, I still find the idea of limiting themes constraining but I will to keep the focus on clothes, home, cafes, coffee and city.

How are you feeling about Instagram these days? What’s your approach?