The “Colorado Instagram 2016” video features a collection of my favorite Colorado images I published throughout 2016 on the Instagram app (and website).
For those who don’t know: Instagram is a photography app for smart phones that is based on the idea of taking and sharing a quick (traditionally square) photo enhanced with filters. If you want to follow my pictures, you can find me under the username LuciWest. Let me know that you found me through this video, and I’ll be sure to follow you back.
If you don’t use Instagram, you can look at all my pictures at Instagram.com/LuciWest. Or you can see them sorted in albums by year in my Instagram Collection on Flickr. starting with my first Instagram photo on June 24th, 2011.
It’s become a bit of a tradition that I put together and share such a retrospective video of my Instagram photography at the end of the year. This year, I noticed that I use a lot less filters than in the early years. This is also because I pretty much stopped using Hipstamatic. Not using filters seems to be a general trend though.
Another big change I’ve decided on is to stop sharing pictures immediately (even though that was the original point of Instagram). Instead, I try to be in the moment as much as possible… taking pictures, sure… but not “leaving the moment” by sorting, selecting, writing and sharing. Instead, I do that later at home when the fun outing is over. Also, I hardly ever take pictures with my phone anymore – and never with the app. Instead, I take pictures with my point’n’shoot or DSLR – since these cameras now connect to my phone via wifi. I used to think that was cheating. But you know what? The times they are a-changing.
For a hot minute, I dabbled in using Instagram Stories – the function that let’s you create a collection of photos as you take them (with writing and drawings on them) and that will only stay up for 24 hours… basically Snapchat. But just like using Snapchat for a previous hot minute, I found the whole endeavor going exactly in the opposite direction of what I want to do with my time while I’m not sitting at my desk. Then there was the video function to compete with Vine and then the live video…
I’m curious to hear if and how you are using Instagram… are you still using the in-app camera? Are you still using filters? Are you hooked on Instagram Stories? Do you ever use the live video?
A few more words about the photos in the Colorado Instagram 2016 video: They were taken around various Fort Collins Natural Areas, Horsetooth Reservoir, Cache la Poudre River, Cherokee Road, Royal Gorge and Red Feather Lakes. The memories they bring up for me are of times spent with Scott and Whiskey and many visitors, like Anne, Miriam, John, Brian, Finn, Darla, Jessica and Erica. What a fantastic year 2016 was (besides that stupid election).
Happy, creative, productive, healthy 2017 to you all. And please, be kind and be brave.
xx Luci
The song in this video is “Second Nature” by Jason Shaw of Audionautix. He made this song available via the CC BY 3.0 license. Thank you so much, Jason, for your lovely music!
I’ll be posting a few of the photos throughout this week to the In A Colorado Minute 2017 Flickr album, on Google+ and Facebook…
