Hashtag Authentic Read online

  In every case, it’s the incidentals, the petty details of everyday life, that hold the most magic for me. We tend to remember the big red letter days, more or less -– they are memories we revisit as we grow, stories we tell to new friends or lovers as the years go by. Seldom do we stop to recall the pattern on our grandmother’s carpet, or the smell of the tomatoes we grew one long heatwave summer from seed.

  These are the fabric of our stories, though. Train your mind and your eyes to look for the precious in your everyday life. What do you want to remember, twenty years from now? What would go into a time capsule of your daily life, today?

  And then, reach for your camera, or your smartphone, or whatever’s around. The plan is not to be perfect. It’s not to keep every photo for ever. Instead, it’s an experiment – in gratitude, in noticing, in being present. And it’s the beginning of our Instagram journey together.

  EXERCISE

  Magic in the mundane

  Grab a notebook and pen (or open up your smartphone notes) and begin to draft a list. What are your favourite parts of the day? Forget for a moment the monotony and the parts you dislike, and focus in on the tiny things that bring you a rush of joy in your gut.

  For example, my list would look something like:

  • The little drawings my daughter doodles in the steam on the bathroom windows

  • The hiss of the espresso maker on the AGA, brewing my first cup of the day

  • Lighting a candle at my desk before starting work

  • Tying my hair up in a piece of vintage ribbon

  • The cat curling up at my feet as I type

  • Discovering there’s still cake left and eating it for lunch

  • The afternoon light streaming through the kitchen window

  • Spotting my daughter’s muddy boots by the door

  • A longed-for package arriving in the post

  • Making soup with a rainbow of misshapen vegetables

  • My daughter coming rushing home, with her hair smelling of woodsmoke, full of stories from school

  • Turning on the fairy lights in the kitchen window as it gets dark

  • A wilting dandelion my daughter brings back for me from the park

  • Driving past tiny new lambs in the nearby field

  • Sharing a glass of icy cold wine with my husband before bed

  • My dog trying to carry a stick that is more like a tree

  Yours might look totally different – perhaps you live an urban, glossy life (in which case, please teach me your ways!). Perhaps your joy comes from your clothing, your interiors, your family or pets. Maybe you’re a total foodie, and your list is 90 per cent edible.

  Or maybe it’s harder for you. Maybe you’re living in a house you hate (I’ve been there!), struggling to make ends meet (been there, too), and the best part of your day is sitting down with a plate of toast and watching reruns of Grand Designs (yep!). That’s fine. That’s perfect. That is your story to tell.

  Perhaps, though, you find your list is woefully short, and you’re not entirely sure why. It’s surprisingly common – especially for women – to push back all of our joy to a lower priority, and spend our days fulfilling other people’s needs and wishes instead. If your life is lacking in these simple, joyful moments, make another list now of how you can start to add some in. Not for me, for this book, or for Instagram, but for your own sanity and quality of life. It’s not selfish to want to enjoy your life a little. It’s the only one you’ve got.

  Now, look at your list. How many of these could be a photograph?

  With a little creativity, I suspect they could all be translated visually. Add in a caption to bring extra context, and you’ve suddenly got a tiny story, a narrative of your daily life that you can capture and save. And – if you’d like to – go on and share it with the rest of the world, and maybe inspire others to try it, too.

  If you decide to share your pictures of any of these moments, use the hashtag

  #hashtagauthenticbook

  I’ll be following the hashtag and sharing my faves on my own social media to help cheer you on.

  MOMENTS, NOT THINGS

  Years ago, in the early days of the Internet, my friend Jo and I made a point of still sending one another ‘snail mail’ letters from time to time. It was an idea driven by nostalgia – an attempt to keep the handwritten word alive, and also just to give each other something nice to look forward to in the post.

  One week, Jo sent me a page torn from a clothing catalogue that we both adored. In the photo, a model laughed to the camera, one hand clutching a weathered French cookbook; the other dangling a messy wooden spoon. She had one of those effortless messy updos, and was in the hallway of a house that was all wooden floors, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and white paint.

  Jo wanted the entire outfit being advertised. As we were both poor students at the time and this was financially impractical, she had set about analysing why she wanted the outfit, and tried to label her reasons with arrows and text.

  I remember this: she wanted to be that kind of girl. She wanted to be able to cook from complicated recipe books, to read fluent French in a bright and beautiful home, while someone (a loving partner, perhaps) took gorgeous photographs of her laughing, looking casually, effortlessly chic.

  The outfit was forgettable – literally, I remember nothing about it any more – but the image, and the story it told, was enough to transport her, and make her want to buy a tiny slice of that girl’s life.

  That letter changed the way I looked at everything. Suddenly I saw how a single still image could be much more than a picture – it was a story, a feeling, and, in the case of advertisements like the one Jo had sent, a seduction of sorts.

  Now, we aren’t all in the business of advertising, but there are two important things we can take from this. One, that images have the power to make us feel any number of things, and should be crafted and shared with compassion and responsibility. And secondly, that the best photographs to share – the ones that truly resonate with other people, online or off – do so because they tell a story.

  I have a mantra I share with all of my students for this – moments, not things. Which is more powerful? A photograph of the beautiful new cup you just bought, sat alone on your kitchen surface under the fluorescent ceiling light – or that new cup filled with tea, with a blanket nearby, a book, maybe a biscuit, and a sleeping cat?

  Which image is more memorable, transporting, emotive and relatable? Which one tells a story and makes you feel?

  When we shoot moments instead of things we capture the feelings as well as the facts. It’s the difference between the kids tearing into their presents around the tree on Christmas morning and simply a photo of that year’s tree, sat alone in isolation. A great moment, photographed, makes us nostalgic – in fact, it should feel that way even if we only shot it yesterday.

  The funny thing about photographing moments is, sometimes they don’t entirely speak for themselves. Sometimes we, as photographers, have to add in the missing elements, style the scene, and think about what it is we’re trying to say. Just like the street photographer moves the empty Coke can out of the scene, or the wedding photographer cues in the confetti when she’s ready for the shot, we have to be willing to be a part of our picture, and shape reality to match our ideas. This is especially true if we plan to share our imagery on a platform such as Instagram, where a photo might first be viewed without any context among a sea of other imagery.

  One handy bonus of doing this and getting hands-on with the art of visual storytelling is you become a whole lot harder to flog those forgettable outfits and other crap to. That picture my friend sent me would still make me feel if I saw it today – but now I’d look at it and know the outfit wasn’t the secret to having that life. I’d be better off learning to cook from that cookbook, or taking a French class, or perfecting the perfect messy updo from tutorials online. Because the thing about feelings is, it takes more than possessions or sho
pping to change them. By building these moments for ourselves from the inside out, we get very good at seeing what the story is really about, and how we can make it our reality.

  EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY

  ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’ says the old adage – except, of course, it doesn’t. Words are just the packaging we put around ideas and objects in order to communicate – be it Sign Language, in writing or something spoken aloud. Pictures are the one type of communication that don’t need any words at all.

  This was never more clear to me than while working in special schools with children with learning disabilities. Pictures allowed us to communicate on topics that a child might never learn the words for; they could ask for the flashing pink rubber caterpillar toy, for example, just by handing me its picture from a pile.

  Pictures transcend language barriers, cognitive differences and offer a different experience to everyone who sees them. A photo of the drive to my daughter’s school might look grey and mundane to my eyes, but would be fresh and exotic to someone in a hot, sunny climate.

  Consider this photograph of my friend, illustrator @helenstephenslion at work (opposite). If you were to try to put this photo into words, where would you begin?

  I’d probably start by saying that it’s someone’s hands holding a book, a woman, by the shape and size of her hands, perhaps, and what I can see of her clothing. I’d talk about what I can see on the pages, what’s there on the desk.

  If I had time after that, I might dig into how the mess suggests a well-used workspace, the quality of her work, perhaps speculate as to the season based on her sweater and the light and her drawings.

  All of that would take several minutes, and we’d still be missing so much of the details. The colours, the textures, the mood. A viewer of a photograph is able to access all of that information with only a split-second glance.

  Of course, not every photo we take will have this level of context or complexity, but often the best images can still convey just as much story and narrative regardless. I find when a composition or shot feels a little empty or lacking, it’s this narrative, or ‘plot line’ that I’ve somehow broken, or missed.

  For these times, it can be helpful to think of a photograph as a story, and revisit each element of the plot or narrative to check for gaps.

  EXERCISE

  Analyze a photo

  Consider each of the following:

  WHO

  The ‘who’ of your photograph can be explicit, such as a person or animal we can see, or implied – like mess left by a child, or a book and a blanket left under a tree in the shade. Sometimes, the viewer themselves is the ‘who’ – the person who the story of this photograph is happening to. This is especially popular on Instagram, where we’re so often trying to put a viewer into our shoes, and give them a tiny taste of our life.

  WHAT

  This is usually easy to answer – what are you taking a picture of? I find it helpful to ask myself, ‘What’s happening?’ to take myself beyond ‘It’s someone with a sketchbook’ to, ‘It’s an artist reviewing her work after a day’s sketching at the beach. ‘ Showing her inky fingers, or a bag containing equipment by her side, might help cue the viewer into more of the story behind the scene.

  WHERE

  This usually refers to where a photograph’s story or moment is taking place. So often when photographing small details we can become drawn in and lose focus on the wider frame. Stepping back can bring some of this context and sense of place to the scene, so perhaps we can see that the table is in a kitchen, and there’s a dog at her feet. If your photo is struggling for story, try reframing to add a greater sense of place to the scene.

  WHY

  This is really about asking yourself, why are you taking this photograph?

  • What prompted you to pick up the camera and shoot?

  • Was it that something was beautiful, or interesting, or surprising, or odd?

  • How can you make sure you capture that fully in the frame?

  For example, I spotted these flowers in a bin in New York City on a hot summer’s day. They were striking in their colour and beauty against the urban landscape. I needed to include the ‘where’ of the city street in order to answer the ‘why’ – because they were surprisingly juxtaposed. There’s never a bad why, and the point is not to question your motivation – unless of course you’re just taking a photograph for Instagram likes, which we’ll get to in due course.

  FINDING YOUR STYLE

  Finding your Instagram style means diving in and discovering you – the real you; your personality, your loves and dislikes, and your voice. Even if the temptation to mimic others is there, only when you build a feed of images that you enjoy, write captions that you want to write, and essentially, show people the real *you* will it result in an invested and engaged audience who love, respect and appreciate what you do and the work that you share.

  @allthatisshe, UK

  Sometimes you’ll land on an Instagram page that just resonates. Every picture is more spellbinding to you than the last; you find yourself clicking compulsively, amazed that someone could capture all that you love and distil it to such succinct squares of beauty that make you feel so much.

  You might have a wobbly moment of self-doubt where you think: ‘I should probably just give up now! I’ll never be able to take pictures like this.’ And the truth is that no, you won’t – because you’ll be taking them like yourself. But that doesn’t mean you won’t enchant people just as much.

  It’s no accident that these inspirational photographers create such compelling, absorbing work, and it’s no coincidence that you like everything on their page. What you have stumbled across in these moments of magic is a creator with a really clear understanding of their own style direction. A clear and coherent creative voice.

  We see this in all creative pursuits. In magazines, in fashion – that knock-out designer, or that person you know who always looks super together and chic. It applies in wedding styles, in interiors, in branding, in art. Knowing your style, and refusing to be distracted from that path by what everyone else is doing is an acquired and artful skill.

  Few of us are born with it instinctively, and for most it is found through an ongoing process of trial and improvement. But when you nail it, you will know – by the way it resonates with other people like you, and the way it feels expansive and intuitively right. The trick is figuring out the difference between what you like and what you are. For this, I like to use a wardrobe analogy, as it’s an area many of us are used to considering in our own shopping and dressing routines.

  In my early twenties, I was an impulsive shopper. Every month on payday I’d head to the nearest mall and grab whatever caught my fancy – black faux-leather leggings, a one-shouldered red top, a vintage peach negligée, a pair of nude leather ballet shoes (it was the 2000s, ok?). The result was always a complex and, honestly, quite baffling mix – things that couldn’t and shouldn’t be paired together, that I always needed to buy more random things to put with in order to wear. Getting dressed each morning was a complex mission of sorting and matching, and my identity lurched from goth girl to urban fairy to occasional vintage chic. Not only this, but I was always depressingly broke.

  All of which is fine, and for many of us that’s what our twenties are for – trying on different personas, working out which feels right. But as I approached my thirties I had a bit of a revelation: the aim wasn’t to try and buy everything I liked. And being a student, and then a National Health Service worker, for all of that decade, I hadn’t been truly buying all the things that I liked anyway – I’d been buying cheap knock-offs, eBay hand-me-downs two sizes too big, and never really nailing any style.

  I had to sit myself down and realize that clothing in stores was not akin to lost, homeless kittens that I needed to take home. I could be more discerning in my shopping.

  When I did this, something magical occurred. Gradually, those confusing, hard-to-wear items dis
appeared from my closet, and my cupboards became less chaotic and full. Mornings became infinitely more simple as everything I owned began to share a common style. And I could finally begin to invest in better, more expensive pieces, safe in the knowledge that this was my own personal style and something I would love long term. I’d finally found my true fashion style, and though of course I’ve deviated off path now and then along the way, the lesson has never left me or my wardrobe again.

  We can use this as an analogy for photography too. It’s possible to have many different inspirations – minimalism, riotous colour, moody black-and-white portraiture, hazy vintage film – but we cannot make each of those genres a stand-out feature in our cohesive voice. We might adore all of these styles, but we cannot and should not try to reproduce them all in an Insta selection box of delights. Like my wardrobe of old, we would end up specializing in none of them, never devoting ourselves to it fully, and never really feeling like our self.

  The trick, instead, is to take inspiration from all that you love – be it photography, fashion, food or beyond – and put that back through the filter of your own true style. Retell that feeling you get from your inspiration, and put it into your own, unique and consistent voice.

  FINDING YOUR VOICE

  Finding this filter, this imprint of yourself, can be surprisingly hard to do. Many of us have had a lifetime of hearing other people’s opinions on the world, and doing our best to people-please and fit within it. Over time this can make us lose sight of our own true opinions and tastes.