So, I started an Instagram hub. I love sharing my work with other hubs, using their hashtags to hopefully get featured, be part of their community, gain more exposure and be inspired by some amazing hand-picked work. (If you're not sure what I'm talking about when I say hub, you can read my post about this on my non-photography blog, Olive Dragonfly.)
I always thought it would be fun to get to scroll through the tagged images getting to choose which ones to feature. So I started my own. I knew I wanted it to be about details, I didn't know of any others specifically focusing on details (although I'm sure there are some, I've since discovered one other) and I had fun coming up with a name/hashtag which wasn't already in use. This Detailed Life was born and I started searching for images I'd like to feature among photographers whose work I admired, asking if it was OK to share.
Of course since no-one knew about this new hub, there were no tagged images to pick from yet but I had to start getting some images on there so people could see the kind of work being featured. I wanted to see if I could build it up without letting on who was behind it at first. I wanted to see if people would be genuinely interested and not because they were asked by a friend. I set myself the challenge of getting 100 followers within a week and seeing how many people would start tagging their images with #thisdetailedlife and luckily it worked.
After 6 days, I had 100 followers and over 200 tags so here I am, a week later, coming out as the person behind it. I know it's still a little hub but I'm hoping people like it and it will continue to grow, I've already found so much inspiration myself. Of course I love all of the images featured, that's why I chose them and I was right about it being fun to be the one behind the scenes choosing the images to feature. So now that I'm no longer hiding, if you like the sound of it, I'd love you to join in with This Detailed Life by tagging your images of the little details. Be it a beautiful close-up of a flower or gorgeous little toes, a precious curl of hair or even a cute little pet whisker.
One of the best things about hubs is the community they help to build. Sharing each others' work, congratulating others on their features, commenting and finding work you love, new photographers to follow. I hope you'll join me in celebrating the little details. I plan to feature some of my favourite featured artists here on the blog (with permission and links to their website/Instagram) every so often too.
And thanks so much to those of you who followed and tagged before I asked ;)