1. spilled milk | 2. annoyed? | 3. slow start | 4. twilight time | 5. new haunt | 6. i made something! | 7. starts | 8. one flower | 9. i made them again!

I have a lot of people talk to me about Instagram. I know I've talked about it here before, but with our class running again, the chatter seems to be increasing so I thought I'd touch on it again. My friend Jackie talks about it as her "tribe," and that's a bit how I feel about it too. These are my people here. I don't have gazillions of followers and I don't get scores of likes on every photo, but, gratifying though that may be, it's never really about that for me.

One of the things we teach in our Ditch Your Gear class is that the best part of using your phone for a camera is how freeing it is. As photographers we're all taught about manual settings and the exposure triangle and how to stop down your aperture to change the look of your photo. With your phone, all the settings are taken care of for you so you're freed to think solely about creativity and composition. (Kim, my co-teacher and I, tend to put our fingers in our ears when it comes to the technical stuff any way!)

On Instagram you can find any number of communities and challenges and prompts, and I tend to jump in and out of these at will. I'm a sometime rule-follower. If the prompt appeals to me, I'll try to make it happen. And when I say "appeals," I mean just that. It can be hard and challenging and still appeal. I tend not to get interested in prompts like "annoyed" (totally went off the rails there and posted peonies...WTH?) or "friendship." I find it hard to shoot what feel like cliches. And really, I don't feel like I'm clever enough to make a prompt like that truly eye-catching. But prompts like "stars," or "one flower" or even "negative space?" Well, I'm all over that. I suppose if I were trying to get noticed or increase my reach, I'd jump endlessly into these forums and be religious about posting pictures inspired by every prompt I see, but the truth is, that's not what Instagram is about for me. As with anything that happens with my creative and online life (at least where they intersect), it's about inspiration and connection. I love seeing beautiful photographs in my feed, as much as I love seeing your puppy sitting in a ray of sunshine. I guess I hope, at least occasionally, I'm putting a pretty photo in yours.

So how did our weekend play out across Instagram? A food styling prompt fell into my lap as literally as spilled (butter) milk, a baseball game with a great catch needed to be recorded, and a beautiful marquee against a steely sky caught my eye. I made some pretzels too (wink).

My experience with this medium has certainly changed. Undergramming, overgramming, snapping endless cups of coffee, camera phone only, or DSLR, all the debates about Instagram will, I'm sure, continue. And yet, still. It's the tribe for me.

So gang, I think I'm going to take the week off this week. We have some things that need tending to around here, and I want to give them my full attention. I like giving my blog my full attention too, and this is one of those times when I can't do both. Thanks for your patience with me. XO

1. I think the weather has been criminal to poor Cal's baseball schedule. He's missed one game on one team and is likely to miss another on Saturday (rain). His school team was meant to play game #5 on Wednesday. Canceled due to rain. They've had ONE game so far. Hard to get your at-bats in a rhythm when there are no at-bats. I love the snow, but I'm ready for some warm.

2. I think I totally should have saved that photo of Cal's "bruised' face for April Fool's Day! When I picked him up at school and saw it, I knew he had to be okay or they would have called. Plus, the bruises looked a day or two old. Neel fell for it hook line and sinker. It was great. I'm sorry if I worried you, but I really just wanted to show off what a great job his teacher did. He hated to take it off.

3. I think I've tried to change my approach to, oh, LIFE this week. In two cases I've leaped where I usually linger (one case took a bit more teeth gnashing, but a lot less than my normal amount) and tried to take advantage of opportunities that have stared me in the face. I have to do something, right? I commented on Facebook that "over thinking was my specialty," and one of my oldest friends pointed out that instead of over thinking we should call it "thoughtfully considering." I love that, but I can "thoughtfully consider" myself until I'm completely frozen, unable to make decisions until they pass me by. I need to trust my instincts more, I think. Or try to.

4. I think one of the best moments of my week was when I was both texting AND emailing a friend of mine at the same time. How crazytown is that? We were having basically the same conversation, but not quite. Somethings just need different technology, I guess.

5. I think I'm thrilled to announce that Ditch Your Gear, the iPhone/camera phone class that I teach with my friend Kim at MOCA, is back by popular demand! We've just added it to the spring docket, so the dates are still being worked out. I'll post them as soon as I know them. In the meantime, if you're local and are interested in brushing up on your blogging or in starting a blog, I'm teaching a class on that too. Head to the MOCA site for details.

weekend recap, end of march

five things, march 28