Ansel Adams said that we don’t take a photograph, we make it.
Your challenge today is to make a photo, a beautiful photo, a photo you’re proud of, that you’d be happy to see hanging in my lounge room.
It can’t be just any photo though, we want it to be made of something in your work, something relevant to who you are, what you do, and how you do it differently.
Here’s the specifications for today’s challenge:
- It has to be a photo that you made.
- You’re welcome to make it on a professional camera if you have one, or on your phone.
- It can be colour or black and white.
- Please edit and colour grade the photo so it looks beautiful to you.
- It must be a tall (portrait orientation) photo, not a wide/landscape photo.
- The caption has to be just over 125 characters, copy and paste the caption to https://charactercounttool.com to see how many characters are in the caption.
- No hashtags in the caption. Just the photo and the caption accompanying the photo.
You’ve just constructed the most viral image Instagram could receive. A tall photo with a caption that requires tapping the “See more” link halfway through the caption. Hashtags have a place but not using them drives you up algorithmically.
Instagram is supposed to be a social network full of beautiful photos, so join the crowd and post today!
Here’s some photos I’ve made recently, and shared on social media.
Josh, great post! Posting shortly. I’m wondering – can you talk a bit more about: “Hashtags have a place but not using them drives you up algorithmically.” I know we’re not going to crack the ever changing Insta code but would love to hear more about that. Thanks!!
The Facebook and Instagram algorithm is some sort of secret religion that most of us will never know or understand, but my current understanding is that overuse of hashtags can hurt a post, and regardless of that, how many times have any of us actually tapped through a hashtag to see what’s there? I think they’re just spammy.