‘There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment. This kind of photography is realism. But realism is not enough – there has to be vision, and the two together can make a good photograph.’

– Robert Frank

The mystery of Instagram!

Having analysed several weeks of data, I think there are two issues with regard to growth in the number of account followers.

Firstly, desensitisation. There is an observable increase in the number of followers associated with a campaign of image posting, followed by a plateau.

Why? Do Instagram users become desensitised by regular posts to an account? Is the expectancy associated with routine, regular postings counter-productive?

And secondly, retention. Looking more closely at the number of followers, there is identifiable pattern of rise and fall around a specific number. For every follower added to the list of followers, two or three are lost.

Again, why? This is a phenomenon I have questioned before, and it is a phenomenon which continues to be observable.

Is it that Instagram users which fall into this category are expecting some sort of reciprocal benefit?

Pragmatically, building a network doesn’t happen overnight, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ – these things take time and relationships have to be nurtured.

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A huge relief to get the audio tracks laid down for the video presentation. Video presentations continue to be a nemesis, although a nemesis I am seemingly beginning to master.

Camtasia – what wonderful software you are! Long gone are the days of preparing PowerPoint slides, advancing them one-by-one, reading whilst fumbling with the pages of a script only for the recording to be scrapped and the process started anew because of a mis-pronounced word (or a sneeze, or a cough, or someone entering the room … the myriad of things which confound presentation production).

Camtasia – altogether something more sophisticated!

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As I write at the beginning of December, thoughts of Christmas are beginning to form into words.

I am looking forward to Christmas for several reasons but pertinently because it offers some respite from study. 2017 has been a long (and difficult) year.

In real terms, this means there is a huge incentive to give everything for one more all-out offensive, one final push as I prepare my assignments for submission on 15 December.

This in turn makes me wonder what the sentiment will be in summer 2018. There won’t be a Christmas break to look forward to, not for some four to six months anyway, only the prospect of the end of two years of study – the end of a (major) chapter in my life. Of course, the end of one chapter signals the start of another.

It’s a very bitter-sweet set of circumstances – there are times I love my studies, there are times where I question my motives for putting myself (and family) through the trials and tribulations of postgraduate study.

‘Photography, alone of the arts, seems perfected to serve the desire humans have for a moment – this very moment – to stay.’

– Sam Abell