My extraordinarily ordinary life!
Thank you to everyone who visited my Instagram page and has supported my journey to better photographs. I am thankful for all your support. Drop by and say hi if you have the time!
Here’e to another year of taking photographs of London, Essex and food!
I’ve never been a spectator…not really. I’ve always had an opinion and more often than not, I opened my mouth to express it and I have, on occasion inserted my foot in my mouth. It hasn’t stopped me from expressing my opinion though.
In the process, I’ve hurt feelings and lost friendships that I valued. I thought I’d learn from the mistakes and keep my opinions to myself, let other people say what I wanted to say. It was only recently that I’ve allowed myself to step back, or hold my tongue and keep schtumm. But last night, I couldn’t keep quiet.
One of my pet peeves is people taking credit for something that they didn’t do. I’ve always tried to credit people when they’ve done something clever or if they’ve helped me do something clever. I’ve always tried to say thank you.
Last night, Alan’s photo was grabbed by someone, posted on their Instagram feed without acknowledging that it was Alan’s photo. I posted a couple of stories to protest the injustice. Once that was done, and we saw that the “borrowed” photos started disappearing from the account’s feed.
I woke up to find the comments section of the photo I posted before 8:30 last night turned into a chatroom for Instagram bot accounts. I would laugh if it wasn’t frustrating. To top it all off, a few people who follow me on Instagram were messaging that the account that grabbed Alan’s photo was claiming that they took the original photo of the look-down view of the rollercoaster in Winter Wonderland that I posted.
I took to Instagram stories again to just get things off my chest. I told my story, and shared my thoughts.
It is certainly a sad commentary on our times when people think it’s acceptable to take other people’s work and pass it off as their own to gain followers and popularity on social media.
I know that I took the photo they’re claiming is theirs. I have the original. I posted it hours before they did and putting a banner of their instagram name across the photo doesn’t prove ownership.
Once, several months ago, an instagram acquaintance posted a comment about a photographer that I follow about how they didn’t think this photographer was an instagrammer.
It made me think. It’s made me wonder where the comment was coming from. Because I, very clearly, thought the photographer I followed WAS an instagrammer. What was this person’s definition of the word “instagrammer”? Was I an Instagrammer in this person’s eyes?
How does one become an instagrammer? What’s the criteria? Is it based on the frequency of your posts? The number of followers? The number of features you get from instagram hubs? The number of likes your posts get?
I googled instagrammer and these were some of the definitions: According to MacMillanDictionary.com, an instagrammer is a user of the Instagram social network. Slangit.com says that an Instagrammer posts images and videos on Instagram and may even comment on other people’s posts. According to the urbandictionary.com an instagrammer simply means a person who gets on Instagram. Better used for a person who gets on often or is obsessive over Instagram.
I posted a question on Instagram and I got the consensus that an instagrammer, as defined by people who have Instagram accounts, is someone who has an instagram account and uses Instagram.
I listen to Sara Tasker’s wonderful podcast Hashtag Authentic (I may have waxed lyrical about how amazing this podcast is in a blog entry) and her podcast on 25 October where she has a conversation with Tara Swiger. One thing they discussed resonated with me so much. Tara said that the numbers about your engagement on social media platforms does not necessarily reflect the value that you provide to the people who follow you for the right reasons. A big audience or following does not necessarily mean expertise or value. It may reflect on the reason why you’re on the social media platform: whether you’re on it to offer a service (which means your provide expertise) or if you’re on it to receive some kind of validation (which relates to the need to pay attention to your stats) or if it’s another reason which is an amalgamation of the two.
So whether you have 100,000 followers or 100 on Instagram or Twitter, or any other social media platform, it does not matter as it doesn’t devalue the material that you post on social media. It doesn’t make you any less of an Instagrammer if you only have a handful of followers, it just makes you less of a player of the Instafame game; as long as you use the platform you are a whatever-er (an Instagrammer, a person who Tweets, a blogger..you get the idea!).
Having said all that, it is important to remember that people’s personal definitions of ideas or concepts is completely subjective and is completely defined by their experiences. So there isn’t really a correct or incorrect definition of what an instagrammer really is. Our personal definitions are based on our experiences, our interactions and our motivations for being on social media. I think what we need to remember is that we need to have is an awareness that our instinctive reactions, i.e. knee-jerk, are based on our personal experiences, definitions and biases. If we remember this, then we avoid making sweeping generalisations and/or saying them out loud. Brilliant, I think, for avoiding foot-in-mouth situations!
I am still tickled pink! On Sunday, O2, my mobile network, featured a photo I took of St Paul’s Cathedral on the O2 UK Instagram account.
It’s already Thursday evening and I still grin like a Cheshire cat when I remember!😍
Sometimes you have good weeks and sometimes you have bad weeks and the days before Open House London were…challenging. A storm had been brewing in my personal life and I was wondering about the choices I was making.
I think the universe knew I needed a distraction because I was overthinking things (as I usually tend to do) and I was starting to doubt my decisions. So I got this message on Instagram on Friday.
I was so excited! I’d been looking at my friend Ella’s little Apple pen offerings on Instagram and I was missing being able to doodle and I thought I’d get myself a few drawing pencils and a few watercolours and I’d start waving a brush around! But as luck would have it, I won a gorgeous “starter” set from Reeves from an Instagram competition that Boxpark in Shoreditch ran. Reeves was running a pop-up shop in Boxpark for a couple of days and this competition was part of that promotion.
I was asked to go to their pop up shop to claim my prize and we were served with welcome drinks and invited to colour postcards, paint plant pots and colour fish themed flip books. We were also given canvas totes with more art supplies samples. I wanted to stay and colour the postcards because they were “I love London” postcards but we had an appointment with 55 Broadway (we’d signed up for a tour of the TFL office which was participating in Open House London) so we had to quickly say our goodbyes.
When I finally got the chance to open my lovely prize, I couldn’t quite believe how generous Reeves were. In my lovely prize box was:
Thank you sooooo much Reeves, I can’t wait to get started!❤️👩🏻🎨
…well, okay, to be honest, I’ll have to recover from Open House London first!🙈
Following my shadow ban on Instagram (I might have had the ban for 4 or 5 days now and didn’t know it until Thursday evening!), I’ve taken the extreme decision of deactivating my account. I’ll be back in a couple of days.
Have a brilliant weekend everyone!❤️
I used to work in Colchester and I do love the little town. I think it was when I started working in Chelmsford that Alan and I stopped going to Colchester often enough for it to stop feeling familiar. I don’t know why, really. It’s got great shops, both independent and popular chains, really good, small independent restaurants (there’s a Caribbean restaurant that does an absolutely divine goat curry that you can get with peas and rice! They even have an all-you-can-eat buffet for £8 on Saturdays; drinks are separate of course. Look for the S&S Restaurant on St. John’s Street) and restaurant names, with more to come as Colchester High Street seems to be making quite the revival (with a Bill’s already established, a Byron’s coming soon and Wagamama opening in the near future as well). Apart from that, it’s got history in shedloads as it’s got a gorgeous 11th century Norman keep, ruins of an Augustinian priory, and the remains of a Roman chariot race track!
Colchester was known as Camulodunum and was mentioned by Pliny the Elder who died in 79AD (and by this virtue it is called the oldest recorded town in Britain). It was the Roman capital of Britain (yes, before London!) but was attacked and destroyed by Boadicea’s (Boudica) rebellion. It was soon after the destruction of Colchester that London became Rome’s provincial capital. Colchester held such a romantic link to the Romans that some historians postulated that it might have been a possible site for the Arthurian city of Camelot.
What I love about Colchester is the history that is all around the town, quite literally. The town is still surrounded by Roman walls that were built after the rebellion led by Boadicea. The Romans wanted to fortify the town and fortify it they certainly did. Parts of the 3,000 yard-long walls still stand. One of the biggest and oldest parts is the Balkerne Gate that stands right next to where the Mercury Theatre is. The history geek in me was excited to find that you could actually touch the Balkerne Gate. There were no protective walls around it. It was literally history you could touch!
Colchester is a mixture of old and new but still has that lovely small town feel that makes you smile. It still has lovely old houses nestled in between relatively new Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian houses. During a trip to Colchester to see what Invasion Colchester was all about last Saturday, Alan and I stopped off at North Bridge in Middleborough in Colchester to photograph this small, charming collection of Medieval houses that were sitting along the River Colne. I’ve seen photographs of it and it has always been biscuit-tin pretty. These lovely pink houses did not disappoint and I got my Instagram-worthy shot (pity about the shadowban, or I’d post it on IG really…maybe I will (if) when the ban gets lifted!). Even the River Colne cooperated and made like it was glass. Pity there was so much coverage on the river or else you’d see perfect reflections of the lovely cottages with their exposed timber frames.
With the fastest train journey from London being an hour and 2 minutes, if you love history, Colchester might just be the place to come and visit.
…on Instagram. That is the question!
I hope the Bard will pardon me for cannibalising his famous words. But this calls for something sombre to somehow describe the gravity of the situation.
Instagram, for those of you who have not heard of the social media app, is a photo-sharing site where people share their snaps “instantly”. I started on Instagram because it helped me practice taking photos for the blog. It kind of took over my life for a while because it became…very social for me. I made virtual friends from various parts of the globe, I got a chance to catch up on friends who lived in other countries, it allowed me to see places that I’d never seen before. It was like getting a travel pass to visit friends and places that I’d never been to. Then my virtual friends became friends in real life.
Instagram, like any social media site has been targeted by bots, trolls and all the mean nasties that social media has created…and for a while, I was quite pleased about how Instagram seemed to be proactive in dealing with the internet nasties. You could report the spammers, trolls, inappropriate posts, and online bullies, and Instagram would listen, they’d investigate and they’d take down the offending account.
I actually appreciated the algorithm…until the algorithm seemed to take on a life of its own! I once joked that the algorithm would run amok in the same way artificial intelligence did in all those sci-fi shows and movies. I’m not certain if it’s the algorithm that’s gone mad, or if it’s instagram tightening things so that they can slowly monetise the service. I’m not forecasting doom and instagram gloom. Just thinking out loud.
I think whilst I have this Instagram shadowban over me, I’ll post my photos and my thoughts on the blog instead!
I was a card carrying member of Del Monte Kitchenomics Club. Now declaring this might be revealing my age, but I did join it whilst I was still in 6th grade (which is now probably equivalent to middle school in the States and Year 7 here in the UK).
Most of what I call my specialties were learned from the back of those Del Monte canned food labels. My pineapple crumble was learned from a can of Del Monte pineapple chunks label, and this recipe started me on my baking and cooking journey.
I have a dish that I call skillet paella or arroz con chorizo which is a one-pot rice meal that is sort of like a short cut version of the popular Spanish rice dish. This was also a recipe I got off the back of a Del Monte label, this time a tomato sauce can. I’ve done and redone the dish and I probably can cook this by sight and still have it taste exactly how I want it. I think it’s because I’ve been cooking this for more than half my life.
I wrote about the dish in an earlier blog entry and called it Arroz con Chorizo, because it, to be honest, it sounded fancy!
It was this dish that did on Instagram stories last week. If you missed it, you can always look at the link above and try the recipe I’ve written down.
I’ll update this entry as soon as the tech cooperates with me and I can upload my photos properly!
I still have to resume the cookbook project that was put on hiatus because, well, life got really busy. But the moment I allowed life to get busy, I lost my balance. I think I need to get back to creating yummy things through baking! I need to regain the equilibrium.
I have been wanting to revamp the blog and start blogging properly again. But I needed inspiration – and probably a huge kick in the behind to get me off the proverbial couch and get to it.
I have been fangirling on Sara Tasker ever since I read an article on Stylist about how she quit her job and carved a lucrative career out of Instagram. I thought, “Oh my gosh! This girl! Her photos! How to be her?” So it was because of Sara Tasker that I started seeking out women who inspired me, women who were brave to forge careers out of things that they were passionate about.
As with everything, I am easily distracted. I completely forgot about improving the blog and allowed myself to be completely immersed and obsessed with Instagram. While it was a creative outlet, it wasn’t what I was good at. I did get quite a few likes on some of my photos though! The photo below was actually liked 1,224 times!
Now that is a revelation because I knew it had a lot of likes but I don’t have a lot of photos that go over 200 in the like category, so when something gets 500+ or 700+, it is a major achievement. It means my photo was interesting enough for people to look and click on that little heart icon. Thank you to every single person who has liked my photos and posted comments!
Instagram is a lovely distraction, but I’ve always thought my writing was more sound than my photography skills. So I searched for inspiration. I read books – lots of books about blogging, writing. food writing, making money from my blog…I’ve read so many articles and was this close to buying an expensive book that “guaranteed” they would get you blogging and making a huge success of yourself and your blog after you read their book. Nope, I didn’t buy the book – but I was tempted.
A friend of mine wanted to start a blog and helpful soul that I am, I said I’d help them set it up. But I felt an awful fraud offering to help someone start a blog when my blog was right there, languishing in the corner! I needed to brush up on inspiration basics, blog inspiration and tips!
Because Sara Tasker was my inspiration, I went back to her website. I wanted to find inspiration. I wanted to find social media tips. I discovered she had a podcast – HOW DID I NOT KNOW THIS?!? So I quickly made room for the podcasts and started listening to her a few days ago. The first 2 podcasts were mind-blowing. It was an inspiration fest. When I get excited I write – and one thing I’ve learned from working in an office is, if you want to remember things, WRITE IT DOWN. It’s something to do with your brain remembering things better when there is an action related to the act of remembering (I read that in a magazine in high school, it suggested studying for exams by walking!).
I’m still listening to Sara and the wonderful group of creatives who join her on the podcast episodes. I’m still writing down what I now call my Hashtag Authentic buzz words. Because that is what they are – they give you a buzz and inspire you to create!
When her website is back up, I’ll post a link to the podcast and the podcast notes (which I thought was a clever way of making you come back to her website!). You can also download the podcast on iTunes.
Be prepared though, because you will be inspired into action – action that focuses on authentic engagement.
Yellywelly 