I sometimes wonder a bit about how much my online worlds interconnect. If I post my new knitting project on Ravelry have you seen it before I get around to tweeting it? If I tell you a funny story on Facebook is it doubling up to blog it too? And if I write about something that is going on in my life as the caption to my Instagram picture, can I assume that most people who are interested in my goings on will have read it as a bite sized chunk and so there's no reason to tell it anywhere online again?

I have no idea.

But just in case you didn't see this on my instagram, and if you did I'm sorry to be repeating myself, there's this cool thing that I'm taking part of that I thought you might like to know about too.

A few weeks ago 10 Melbourne instagrammers were contacted by The Centre of Contemporary Photography (CCP) in Melbourne, inviting us to take part in their inaugural instagram competition. And I was one of them, can you believe it?!! I certainly couldn't.

The rules are that each participant must post a photo each Friday for ten Fridays using a one word prompt provided. Other than that we would be free to use instagram however we liked.

At first I felt honoured and humbled and majorly overwhelmed to be included amongst such incredible photographers. I think I even jumped up and down a bit too. And then I promptly panicked and wrote back an email stating the ten reasons why there was no way I could play along. The first one being how incredibly talented and professional and arty the other nine photographers are. I thought I would feel silly taking my usual photos of wool and chickens and children alongside their masterpieces.

But then after a good long think, and a few kind pep talks from my peeps, I decided to play along. But I would be trying my hardest not to be intimidated, not to second guess myself and not to try and recreate anyone else's style. And I would post iPhone photos only, edited on my phone only, taken on or as close as possible to the same day as posting only. 

So each Friday we'll be posting our pics using the hashtag #ccp_australia. Each week there will be a different theme and each week I'll be hyperventilating while I work out what to post and hope to goodness that I don't make too much of a fool of myself while doing so.

The first theme was BEGINNINGS and my photo was the springtime one up above.

I think the first one was the hardest because I didn't know what to expect from the others. But around lunchtime as I was gathering veggies from the garden for dinner and flowers for the table, I had the brainwave to lay them out on the ground like that.

I tried doing the writing with seeds, then with petals before the chalk. Our dog ran through it a few times and I panicked as the others started posting their clean, stunning pics. But eventually I took a big deep breath and posted it. It's earthy and messy but then again so am I.

The second week's prompt was TEXTURE.

We moved all our flocks of chickens through the forest that Friday morning and I considered every wood-pile, every fallen branch, every bit of moss and every other interesting textural bit of forest I came across, but in the end I decided I wanted something brighter.

So at about five o'clock, just when I thought the light would be just right, I carried a chair and a pile of blankets I'd made down the hill to the back of the bottom shed. But no matter how I tried I couldn't get the shot I wanted.

I spent the next ten minutes running up and down our hill chucking those blankets on things, against things and underneath things before coming home and snapping the picture above. Sometimes simple just works better.


Last Friday's word was LIGHT.

All week I'd imagined something to do with feathers - light as a feather and all that. And it just so happened that last week our pullet flock started losing their baby feathers and I amassed quite the collection.

But out of the three, this last photo is the one I am least happy with. Although it has light and feathery light, and although it is earthy and farmy, I still don't think it is me. I feel like I tried something and it didn't quite work.

Luckily I've only got a few days before this Friday's entry to make myself feel better.

You can click on the #ccp_australia hashtag to check it all out for yourself and if you like you can even play along using the #diyccpsalon hashtag. Come November all the 100 photos will be printed out and hung as a proper exhibition and you can go along and see them there too. Wow!

Oh and these three photos were taken on my camera, but if you want to have a look at the proper instagram versions, please come and find me, I'm @foxslane over there too.

Anyway, enough about me, how about you?
Do you have your own rules for your instagram posting?
Do you feel like everyone's just repeating themselves, repeating themselves all over social media?
Do you think you might like to play along with this Friday's CCP prompt too?



I hope your light is just right.
Happy snapping!

xx