Images for a Social World – assessment 3
As we head into the second half of our course we start preparing for our final assessment. The brief is to explore a visual theme or story through a process of editing, refining and reshooting keeping a social media platform in mind.
My chosen platform is Instagram but the images will also be shared here on my blog and via Facebook. With Instagram being my primary form of image sharing, I am aware that images need a bit of punch and slightly more brightness and contrast than what might be considered normal.
Developing a visual theme can be fun. It can be as simple as focussing on a single subject or photos that share a particular colour to something more abstract such as textures or the play of light. There are a couple of themes rumbling around my brain and I’ll share them over the coming weeks.
Knowing what the coming weeks will hold photography wise, I’ve been thinking about the following –
- The march of the Galactic Empire
- The last days of Autumn (Wellington pt sunset, GOMA, city cycle, park visit)
- Sunset at Wellington Point
- Artful macros
- Brisbane from a bicycle
- City Hall clock tower
This week I’ve started to put together groups of images that will suit a theme. The first theme I’ve been toying with is a collection of artful macros from my art journals. I’m always taking photos of my journal while creating. Ultimately they will be used for videos to explain my process but it has become a habit. I love the abstract nature of some of the images and have been able to use creative edits to further enhance them.
Image creation for Social Media
The course content has discussed a range of social media platforms such as Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and their use for image sharing. Going through the content was pretty straightforward for me as I’ve spent a lot of time educating myself on my favourites and the best way to edit images for uploading.
I found one link very interesting. It concerned the compression Facebook uses for different image sizes and it gives me something to think about when I upload directly to Facebook. I don’t do that too often, preferring to share via Instagram.
I found a cool tutorial on the same site which shows you how to add a rainbow effect to an image using Photoshop. Scroll down to the bottom for details on how to do it without an action.
One photo sharing site was covered that I don’t have much experience with – 500px. It’s been on my list to investigate the site as many of my friends in the Canon Collective use it regularly.
Just a few minutes of scrolling around the site gives a cup full of inspiration! I need to further check out these links when I get some time.
There seems to be a bit of a learning curve in getting noticed on 500px and I think I’ll be referring back to this article by Jason Waltman a few times to learn more!
Purple Salt #2 