My trip to York, Western Australia.

So last week I went on a day trip with my Mum and sister to York which is an hour and a half drive (100km) from Perth. York is actually the oldest inland town in Western Australia, and it still has the majority of the buildings that were originally built there so the town seems like a bit of a time machine. 

Town Hall

The site seeing in York is pretty much the town hall, sock factory, the Avon river and suspension bridge (where they have the Avon decent) and the other little cafe's and antique shops that you find while walking down the strip.

 Gull Petrol Station

Old Building

York Supermarket (IGA)

Yellow can and building

No Parking

                                                     A fresh coat of paint




After going to the town hall, the sock factory and a few antique stores we walked down the main strip and went to a cafe and finally headed to Mt. Brown.

A majestic photo of me on Mt. Brown

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We then went to Northam (another 35km) to visit my sister so I'll be doing another blog post on that in due course.

How I'm growing my Instagram in 2018 - 11 TIPS.





If you've been following my Youtube you know that I have struggled to find out what the hell I want to post on Instagram! I went from shooting abstract, candid photos on my Instagram to posting travel photos, to posting street photography photos to posting a bit of everything before finally finding my niche which is like a minimalist approach to urban & landscape photography. This took me years to figure out.

Why did I choose this style for my Instagram?




- It can have a consistent feed so people can latch onto your idea.

- It combines both my interests (and areas of study) graphic design and photography).

- I think commercially it can be quite successful because the images are quite re- postable and if people know where the spot that I shot is they find it entertaining.

- It's something that I can just GO OUT AND SHOOT, which is what I really wanted.

Although I don't have a big follower count by any means- I have found the formula for getting higher engagement and more followers - I'll teach you that here and I'll prove it to you as I go along. So without further ado, follow these simple steps!

1. Be a part of the community: Follow and interact with your niche (comment on photos, reply & like comments, directly message people). Try spending at least 1-4 hours a day doing this)

2. Post Quality photographs (Intent + technical photography elements = a great photograph). The in-app editing in Instagram is actually amazing.

3. Hashtag! Don't be afraid to hashtag. You want to get your stuff out there right?

4. Tag influencers and other related pages in your photo. 

5. Have a great looking feed (Use apps like UNUM to plan your feed).

6. Share YOUR story and the behind the scenes (by using Instagram stories.)

7. Be passionate about what you do! If you're not passionate about what you do it won't take long before you aren't motivated to post anymore.

9. Think of your page as a brand- People want to know instantly who you are and what you are about. 

Is it working for me?

In the past 2 weeks I have been shared twice by a local redevelopement company @fomofreo (1,347 followers), a minimalism collective @minimalism42 (6,504 followers) and the biggest digital community @perthisok (205,000 followers).

I've grown 50 organic followers in the past week and as long as I keep applying this formula I should have 1000 followers by the end of the year. This will have a snowball effect and I'll keep growing faster and faster.

I have to admit that it's hard to keep up step #1 though!

Helpful apps...

Leetags

I recommend using an app called 'Leetags' which lets you search a theme and have the most popular hashtags relating to that theme pop up, so you can then copy and paste them. 




You can download LeeTags from the app store here: https://www.leetags.com/

UNUM

Unum is an amazing app I've been using for a few years. It's fast, clean and has loads of extra features that let you know the best times to post, your most popular hashtags, your best posts, and your follower stats.