wrestling with blogging/instagram

My oldest son took this shot of me while answering SnapShop questions. My ‘office’ is so glamorous – pillow on the floor in front of the space heater.

The latest round of SnapShops ended on Saturday. The closing of each class is bittersweet to me. On the one hand – juggling life, homeschooling and teaching 2 courses is often overwhelming. The close of courses brings back a little breathing room.

On the other hand – for 4 weeks I get to know some of you that read my blog. Daily, I get to answer questions and share my love of what it means to capture everyday life. I get to see students’ pictures and peek into their daily lives. My online/blogging world becomes more 2-way and I so love that dialogue. I get to watch photography ‘click’ and students go from feeling overwhelmed to excited about photography.

I really love teaching – that doesn’t mean I am good at it, but I do really enjoy it. I am passionate about photography – about this tool for slowing down my life and seeing every day as beauty waiting to be captured. I can’t describe how fun it is to me when a student tells me something makes sense for the first time or that a new passion has been ignited in their life. When I began blogging nearly 7 years ago, I could never have dreamed that I would get to come along others as they begin their photography journey.

Each time a SnapShop ends, I find myself a little reflective. I’m usually thinking about students, about this journey of teaching, about being online in general. I’ve been on social media for a while now. I started blogging right before it BOOMED (when everyone was reading blogs). I’ve kept blogging while is seems like everyone is ditching blogs for instagram. I like blogging – probably because I like words and lots of photos! I have a love/hate relationship with instagram. I’m on instagram and really like the ease of quick picture posts. I like the challenge of capturing things with my phone and cropping them to a square. It is a treat to get to see the photos of others, but there is some stuff about instagram I don’t like. I kind of wish people could only follow my instagram if they read my blog, it would be far less people, but it would be those that ‘know’ me. I’d so prefer that option. This blog is my place where I really share me – my story, the overflows of what is going on in my heart and life.

This blog is just me. No assistants. No contributors. Just me and my randomness with words and photos.

I often wrestle with Instagram – how to be me – real & authentic – without it becoming a mini-blog.

I post primarily happy, pretty pictures to instgram because I often see it just as an extension of this blog – where the meat of life is. Yet, I realize far more people follow me on instgram than read this blog. Anyway…no bow to tie on this story. It’s just something I think about from time to time.

So, as I wrestle with that – I thought I would just ask you guys. I like to think of this as my virtual morning coffee with friends. So if we were sitting down for coffee this morning and I asked you about my tension with blogging/ instagram and what to share where….what would you say?

Some of my IG photos…because I like posts with pictures!