A Weekend in Black and White

Weekends are my favourite time for Instagram - both following what people are doing and sharing my own pics.

During the week I saw a beautiful black and white photo in my feed and decided I'd capture some moments in this classic medium. It was an interesting experiment - it only took a few pics for me to realise that the things that I would normally take a photo of because the colours were pretty were not going to work.

So I looked more closely at shades and texture - and shared some different subjects from my usual.

This was a fun experiment - I really liked the way these turned out.

Do you ever "shoot" in black and white? What's your fave Instagram filter?
 

Globalise your instagram‏

 

[source: @surelysarah]

I love my instagram feed. With social media, your feed is only as good as the people you follow. Constant vigilance is required, careful curation needed to ensure that for the most part, only the cream of the crop is scrolling past your eyes. I am an enthusiastic follower but ruthless unfollower – if you aren’t posting what I like, why waste my time looking at it?

So are you sick of pictures of clouds and people’s feet? May I suggest Globalisation?

Recently I seem to have acquired some excellent international instagrammers and I’m thinking they’re too good not to share. I love the peek they give me into other landscapes, other places so exotic from my own Queenslander existence. They bring me daily delight and I hope they do for you too.

@58northphotography – Hebrides Islands

@editor_in_chief - Germany

@woody_chai – Bangkok

@vdubl - Hong Kong

@dguttenfelder - formerly North Korea, lately posts from the US

@newsjean - North and South Korea

@elinlia – Norway

@kitandnancy – The Netherlands

@sezyilmaz – Istanbul

Do you follow people from the world over? Who would you recommend?

No texting and no Twitter make Sarah something something

[image source]

From Friday last week, to yesterday afternoon, I couldn't use my iPhone. First World Problems, I know.

What I wasn't prepared for was the sense of loss and helplessness that this situation evoked in me! I would continually pick it up, start to text someone and remember. Put phone back down. Pick it up a minute later, open Echofon and try to tweet and then remember.

Due to some barring placed on it by my service provider (a little matter of an overdue bill... but we won't go into that. Suffice to say there was no notice and apparently since it wasn't a full suspension of service I don't deserve any. Not happy.) I could receive incoming calls and texts but not send anything, or access the internet. Do you know how frustrating it is to not reply to a text when you want to? And if I wasn't home I couldn't pick up the home phone (which has also had a fault on it, don't even ask!) and make an old-fashioned landline call to tell people why I couldn't respond!

Telstra couldn't seem to remove the bar, despite me complying with their billing request. So I spent the entire weekend and Monday not texting, tweeting, calling, instagramming, Path-ing, playing Words With Friends or checking into GetGlue. It was strange - I've had my iphone for only a year but it felt like my arm had been cut off. Basically it had been rendered a black brick on which I could only play Freecell.

Finally after 4 phone calls and a complaint logged via the web I rang Telstra yesterday afternoon, said "complaint" into the RVA and miraculously was put through to a person who knew what the hell they were doing. He fixed it within 5 mins, and I could use my phone again. Halle-freaking-lujah!

I spent 30 years of my life without an iPhone, and  4 days without one sent me round the twist. What has become of me?

Are you too reliant on your Smart Phone? Is your life on there? How have you coped/would you cope without it?