I feel like a whole new world has been opened up to me. I have been using the Instagram app to display/edit my iphone photos for well over a year now, but I was basically just using it one-sidedly; posting and editing my own photos (usually to re-post on Facebook) but not really exploring other people's photography. Sure, I clicked on the "popular" tab a few times (although most of those photos are pretty lame...) and I saw all of my Facebook friends' photos (as Facebook is linked to Instagram, and often those photos would be posted both places allowing me to see them twice:)) but just this past week I discovered something so wonderful and amazing that I've hardly been able to stop myself from checking Instagram constantly - and have almost completely forgotten about that other social media thingy...what was it called...Bookface?! You see, Instagram is JUST.PHOTOS. No ads, no rants, no silly status updates, or constant political bombardment. It's photojournaling at its finest and I can absolutely lose myself in other people's lovely photos of nature, food, knitting projects, farm living, and barefoot, breastfeeding children. There are a few blogs I've been following because I absolutely love their lifestyle photography: The Road is Home, Beauty That Moves, and A Holy Experience. So when I found that these bloggers had Instagram accounts (more photos - yay!) I was super excited. And that excitement grew one-thousand-fold when I realized I could see who they were following on Instagram - which led me to find dozens and dozens of other Instagrammers with similar photography styles! And then I could see who those people are following on Instagram...and you get the "picture" (pun totally intended). So now I'm following all of these lovely people who take pictures of lovely things and it's just absolutely lovely.
Some of my favorites that I've started following on Instagram this week:
I am just loving Instagram. Did I say that already?! It's like I get to be around all of these beautiful things all day long; flowers, farms, artsy food, interior design, knitted sweaters, lovely forests, happy children, beautiful fabrics, etc., just by tapping the Instagram app on my phone and scrolling through the most recent photos. And when you're following all of these people with a certain style you like - it's like flipping through the best magazine you could ever imagine...that never ends!!!
Seeing all of these other people's lovely photos has really inspired me in my own photographic attempts this week. I've always loved to take pictures, but I've been trying to really make my photos more artistic and pleasing to the eye now that I have so many wonderful sources of visual inspiration. I also found a really great photo-editing app this week to edit my photos before I post them to Instagram (yes, it's an app for an app) called Afterlight. I really like these filters because they give my photos that kind of muted, romantic, vintagey look.
Here are a few of the photos I posted on Instagram this week (all taken on my iPhone 4S and edited with the Afterlight app):
To see all of my photos, you can follow me on Instagram at http://instagram.com/oregonmama
Now excuse me while I wrap up this blog post so I can go drool over more photos on Instagram... :)
