An Instagram Confidence Crisis

I’m having a crisis of confidence in my Instagram account. Whilst I appreciate all of you who follow me over there, and the numbers aren’t completely terrible; they haven’t increased at all in months. MONTHS!….

And whilst it’s lovely just having a space to share my photos, the point of the account is also to reach a potential audience for this blog. So I need to think about it, and maybe do something differently. It’s difficult because whenever I receive feedback, people always comment how good my Instagram is. But it’s clearly not good enough.

I’ve just finished reading the wonderful Sara Tasker’s book, Hashtag Authentic, (review coming very soon) and I realise, I think, where I have been going wrong. I haven’t been taking photos of moments; I haven’t been telling stories well enough. I’ve seen the trend for people to include both their hands in a flatlay style photo, but I didn’t really get why until now. It brings the viewer into the story; it brings you into part of their lives, and therefore it makes sense that that will resonate well with people.

Don’t get me wrong; I still like a good flatlay, particularly those by @5ftinf, but I’m not sure I’m going to include many on my Instagram grid any more. (Apart from all the Christmas ones I already did in January ready for December – I can’t see those wasted!) Instead, I’m really going to try and take photos of moments and stories. I’ll be honest, I think Chris and I have got the hang of that now when I’m dressed up in an outfit to shoot for the fashion posts on this blog. Along with making sure we have all angles and the details of the garments, we get a bit more creative lately with Instagram in mind.

So where does that leave me? I like taking landscapes and close-ups of flowers. They may be pretty, but they may not work well on Instagram. Perhaps I should have my Instagram account just for photos Chris has taken with me in them? I’m not sure; I’m going to take a couple of days to think about it. I have a feeling I’m going to have to get practicing with the self-timer function, and rig up some sort of plank system with a counterbalance weight (as Sara Tasker suggests) to get my hands in shot!

I have a fundamental personality problem, and that’s that I have a need to show or tell someone about everything I do. (It’s probably the reason why I started this blog and probably comes from some deep psychological need to be validated.) So if I’m not sharing my photos on Instagram, I have a feeling you’re going to be seeing a lot more photography on When I Grow Up. I hope you don’t mind! I’m reviving the Monthly Memoir posts, so there’ll be some photos there from what I’ve been up to. I enjoyed the daily black and white photo project I set myself last August, but I just don’t have the time for a photograph every day, so I thought adding more photos to that regular post would be a good compromise. I’ll also do more photography based travel blog posts. All I need now is that extra few hours a day!

Linking with #sharealllinkup at Not Dressed as Lamb.