My photography journey # 5
Discovering Instagram, joining my first photography class + becoming a blogger. (2011-2012).
2011 was the year I got Instagram. To be honest I don’t remember, how I discovered the app, or why I was drawn towards it, but I quickly fell madly in love with the square images, the frames and the filters, which I loved to play around with.
I am not sure how it started, but suddenly I found myself photographing old bicycles all over Florence along with a few Vespas and Fiat ‘500s. I loved how the photos turned out, when I applied my favorite filters (Rise and Sierra), and the square format was just perfect.
But I also photographed other things. In fact I captured everything. Flowers, landscapes, cityscapes, shops, food, cats and dogs.
I loved Instagram so much, and I actually think, that I learned a lot from it in terms of composition, subjects, colors etc.
Although I am horrified by a lot of the photos today, there are many of them, which I still love. I think they have a special charm and look, which only existed for a short period of time, and which is already part of the past.
Surely my attachment to these photos is also related to the memories of how good it felt to make them and share them. Instagram was so much fun the first many years, so inspirational, and a great way to meet other local photographers.
When I think of what the platform has become today, I almost want to cry. I am not against the evolution of things, but when it comes to Instagram, in my opinion it has only worsened, and today I can hardly recognize the platform, it used to be.
For many years I only used Instagram to share images made with my iPhone. When other people began to share more serious photography made with DSLRs on the app, I insisted for a long time, that Instagram was only going to be dedicated to my mobile photography. To me Instagram was so connected to my phone, and it felt like cheating to upload a photo made with a real camera. I loved the filters, and they only got better, when years later I replaced them with the presets in the VSCO cam app, which gave my photos a more natural, almost commercial look.
I think that it was only around 2016-2017, that I gave in and slowly started using the app as a general place for sharing my photography, including client work and other photos made with my DSLR.
2011 was also the year my daughter was born, and I went on maternity leave for one year.
I was living in Florence, and when my daughter was about six months old, I decided, it was time to sign up for my first photography class in order to learn a minimum of the basics of photography.
I felt quite confident in terms of composition, finding subjects to capture etc., but when it came to the technical aspects of using my camera, I was rather clueless and still shooting in automode.
Right around the corner from where I lived, there was a school of photography offering evening classes. I signed up for a beginners class, which was to last two months with classes twice every week. It turned out to be a great and fun investment.
I slowly began to shoot more and more in manual mode. Through the school I also purchased Lightroom and Photoshop for the first time, and a whole new world opened up to me. Goodbye iPhoto!
I loved all the possibilities, which the new programs gave me in terms of editing, and soon I also purchased my first presets.
I learned most of Lightroom by myself simply by watching tutorials online, but I also purchased an online course by a Danish photographer, which contained a bit of everything including editing.
Being a mum for the first time along with having a passion for photography obviously meant, that I spent a lot of time photographing my daughter. Especially since I had photographed my friends’ children for the past three years. Now it was finally my turn to take advantage of my still relatively new camera and make some nice portraits of my daughter.
2011-2012 were also the years, where I became a blogger.
My blog My Sweet Rome was up and running, but since I had moved to Florence, I would no longer be able to update it with new posts about places in Rome, so it made sense to create a second blog called My Sweet Florence. Same concept, same look. Except now I was writing about places in Florence.
Blogging became a huge passion for me, and as a nice bonus my Florence blog turned out to be a great way to meet other expat bloggers in my new city, something which caught me by surprise, because I had no idea back then, just how many people, especially expats, were actually blogging.
In 2012 I received an invitation to a new blogger conference, which was going to be held in Berlin. It was called The Hive, and since I had the possibility of traveling there together with my mum and my daughter, I decided to go.
The Hive turned out to be a truly inspirational event. Compared to most of the other bloggers, who came from all of Europe, I was a complete newbie, and I learned so much from them.
In Spring 2012 I decided to unite my then three blogs (In the meantime I had also created a My Sweet Copenhagen blog) into one, which I would also use for my photography and for more random scribblings.
I wanted a new and completely neutral name, which would allow me to share whatever I liked, without having to follow a specific city as the main topic.
The name, I chose, was A dusty olive green, and it became my main blog, which I kept for many years.
In 2012 I made a small upgrade to my photography equipment. So far I had only been shooting with my Canon EOS 40D and the kit lens, which came with it, but this year I bought the Canon EF 50 mm f/1.4, and I loved it.
The new lens was perfect for making portraits of my daughter, and overall it was just a nice upgrade. I had been dying to get a lens with a wider aperture than my kit lens, and now I was finally able to really play around with the blurred backgrounds, which I loved so much.
For many years I kept using this lens, and even today I think, that it is one of the absolute best lenses compared to the very reasonable price.
That’s all for now. I will take a small break from my photography journey posts, since I just got a lot of film scans back from the lab, which I will share very soon.
Love these journey posts as I’ve mentioned before. They’re so fun to read and relate to. I definitely was a blogger and at the time it was all about art, as I worked as a 2D animator for many years before becoming an art director. My first blogs name where I shared my art was titled, Calling All Squirrels. I don’t know how I came up with it, it made no sense at all, I don’t think I’ve even drawn a squirrel before.
So interesting to see these old posts.