Behind the ‘Gram: What You Don’t See in the Instagram Photo
Hi everyone! I’m back with another installment of my Behind the ‘Gram series where I share what goes into the pictures you see me post on my Instagram feed. The platform is a creative outlet for me that I have a love/hate relationship with, and the amount of time and energy I put into each little picture you see can vary depending on the photo. Sit back, relax and I hope you get a good laugh out of this!
Let’s chat about iPhone pics. I pretty much never post them on my feed for a few reasons, 1) because I use editing presets designed for RAW images (DSLR or higher quality photos) that really don’t transfer well with iPhone pics, and 2) because the quality just seems like a huge downgrade compared to my other usual high-resolution images. Once you start using a nice camera, it’s almost impossible to go back! I didn’t have my camera with me this day when we were out, so I posted an iPhone pic I shot and it’s weird to even admit that I was hesitant to post it. I wondered if it looked way too grainy and if it would just look bad in general, but I bit the bullet and did it anyway because I wanted to share the memory.
This sequence was too funny to not post the outtakes. Lucia is a true sweetie, but she’s still a puppy and that shows above! 😂 If she’s not sleeping, she’s on the move and looking for trouble, so getting photos with her can be tricky sometimes. She 100% makes me feel like a mom chasing my baby around trying to get them to stay still, and it can take a lot of shots to get one good one. Patience is key and I have a feeling that she’s going to continue to be in so many of my photos because I’m so obsessed with her and she won’t be this little forever!
It took a couple different concepts to get these shots, which I was taking to showcase the hair clips. I had Justin take some photos of my profile against one of our doors, but I couldn’t get the angle right with my body. I decided to flip the screen, step forward a few feet so I was closer to the window and take some selfies instead. Though I’m always having my photo taken for my blog and have gotten more comfortable in front of the camera over time, I almost never take selfies, so it takes me a few tries to get into the groove of it. I shot TONS of photos this time just to get 4-5 that I liked — which really weren’t all that different from each other. I basically do various combinations of looking at the camera and looking down, smiling with and without teeth, and tilting my head different ways.
This was a tough image to capture for a handful of reasons, first being that I had to coach Justin on what I wanted. Obviously, both my hands were in the shot and because of the angle, I couldn’t see what he was doing and it was a bit of an awkward shot to get right. The slightest movement caused the lens to focus on the background instead of the foreground, and it was tough to hold my hands still in this position while keeping the rest of my body out of frame. The struggle didn’t stop there because it was tough to get each nail to show up true-to-color with all of my usual editing techniques as well. I played around with the colors a lot and ended up settling on this final edit, which I think still represents that my nails were mismatch like I wanted it too.
This photo performed SO WELL, to my surprise, so I want to talk about it for a sec. Though I personally loved the photo, I thought others would find it mediocre overall since there’s nothing really nothing unique or spectacular about it, you know? I guess other people disagreed because it got the most likes that I’ve had on Instagram probably since our wedding! 😂 Again, this was another “in the moment” shot — I was relaxing, thought it would be a cute pic and ended up liking it enough to post it. It showcases our living room to a T with a first-person perspective.
To end this post, I want to say something that I hope you already know if you’re a loyal reader/follower of mine. Though I strive to create a feed that is cohesive and beautiful, I don’t want anyone to think for a single second that I’m sharing anything unrealistic or fake. I essentially post pictures of myself, my house, my dog and my husband, and though I capture these things with a creative eye, it’s all real and what’s really going on in my life at the present moment. I don’t buy or do things just for pictures and I don’t alter things to be anything short of reality. This is a duh for me on my side of things, but I just wanted to put that out there for reassurance!
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Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this post and getting some insight behind some of my recent Instagram photos. Photography and social media can really be an art, and I encourage you to have fun with it and feel good about what you’re posting. It really serves as a memory bank for me and I love that about it. Thanks for visiting the blog & see you in Friday’s post!
