Week 7 Part A: Get visual with Instagram

     For my photography I have decided to pretty much exclusively use Instagram. It seemed like a no brainer since Instagram seems to be just for photos. This is what I love about it. There aren't the distractions of posts rambling on about random topics. There are just images, which is what I want. I started my Instagram account about seven years ago as a place to post pictures of my new life in San Diego. I had just moved out here from Hawaii and wanted my friends back home to be able to follow my journey. Very quickly it turned into a place where I posted pictures of food that I had made either at work or at home. It would remain this way for years, a food account. During this time my photography pretty much lived on my memory cards or in files on my computer. With the beginning of the pandemic came the restaurant shut down. I left the field of work I had known so well for the previous fifteen years to focus on my photography. This was when my account made yet another and final shift to just my photography. As of this post I have 1,227 followers. Not much in the realm of Instagram but it's a lot more than it was when I only posted food. I can't say how effective it's been as a business tool because I haven't put myself out there like that on Instagram. What I mean to say is that I don't advertise that I am a lens for hire. I show people my account when networking and it has worked out that I got a job because they liked what they saw. But as for people reaching out directly from the app, it hasn't happened like that yet. When I'm not in a creative rut, which I find myself in from time to time, I post three to five times a week. When I am feeling creatively depleted I sometimes go weeks without posting anything. I notice that after I don't post for a while my likes and interactions are significantly less. I usually use many of the same hashtags regardless of content. I usually use words like Fujifilm, Fujifilm US, monochrome photography, Adobe and San Diego Photography. I follow quite a few other businesses. They are mostly photography or videography businesses but I also follow restaurants and catering businesses as well. Here is the link to my Instagram page. https://www.instagram.com/vincent.ortiz.images/