Alone at IKEA

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I've cycled to IKEA to size up some bits & pieces for a job. Since it's dinnertime, I'm eating my dinner. Since it's IKEA, I'm eating meatballs.

Eating alone at IKEA is quite nice. Like a big coffee shop. I could sit here all day using the free WIFI and I don't imagine anyone would bother. It's a bit lonely, though.

This photo is my meatballs flipped and arranged using the new Layout app from Instagram. I've never posted anything to my blog from my phone before but I liked how this turned out so I thought I'd give it a go.

Hiding In Plain Sight

My friend Concetta has started Hiding In Plain Sight, an amazing wee Facebook Group where anyone can post photos of themselves, um, hiding in plain sight. There are already some pretty great examples.

Today, on a New Years Day wander (happy New Year by the way) around Shawlands, Concetta took the above snap of Alex and I. Glasgow in January can be a little on the grey side but we tried our best.

Join in! #hidinginplainsight

Flickr

I've started a new Flickr account, partly because of the recent Instagram debacle, partly because of their new app and partly because I'd started my old account with a username I don't much like anymore. If you have any interest in seeing what photos I take, gimmie a wee look.

A quick note on the Instagram thing - I was fairly vocal (for me at least) against their policy changes when they were first announced, not so much because I thought my crappy photos were going to end up in ads, but more as a knee-jerk reaction to another non-creepy app that I liked becoming a creepy app that I'd miss.

For now at least, I'm gonna stick with it. As I tweeted: I really like Instagram and I like Facebook (the creepiest of all creeps) too and I'll continue using both. If either makes me too uncomfortable, I'll stop.

Not a brave stance, but a stance nonetheless.

(I crosspost my Instagram photos to Flickr with a little IFTTT trickery so they've never really felt tied to any one place anyway.)

My Instagram Web Profile

Instagram is rolling out its web profile pages this week and mine just went live. Once they're done, everyone's public photographs will be viewable through a normal web browser. This'll make it super easy to share / follow / find people from links and blog posts (such as this).

Here I've quickly put together 3 sets of photos that I really love, loosely themed around animals, people and places.

Revisiting my own wee archive has been interesting - 402 photos over two years. All stuff that at some point, I reckoned was worth sharing. Some of my early uploads were pretty heavy on the filters but, on the whole, I think they hold up not too badly. Mostly.

The square format keeps Instagram photos out of my yearly montages and it's nice to now have a place I can browse through them easily. The selective nature of the app actually creates quite a tightly edited little gallery when you view it all at once.

I still use Instagram a lot, quite carefully choosing who to follow (mostly people I know) and trying to stay up to date with my timeline. Uploading is something I do only when I feel that I've got something funny or interesting to share and I loosely stick to a 1-a-day limit because, man, nobody really cares about someone else's God damn trip to the beach too much at all.

Follow me (if you like) at Instagram.com/davidgalletly.

Instagramming

For the past year I've been using Instagram, the photo filtering / sharing app. I really like it. I know, I know - making digial pictures look all retro and analogue is cheesy. But, guess what? It's kinda fun. You can be pretty subtle and at least they don't force you to use the faux-Polaroid borders anymore.

Anyway, 'til now, the only person I followed or (allowed to follow myself) was Alex. We had a private photostream (nothing saucy, honest) that only the other could see. It was a pretty cool thing - if Alex was away somewhere, I'd occasionally get a text saying 'check instagram' and I'd know to take a look at whatever she'd found on her travels.

The other day though, disaster struck. Alex accidentally made her stream public and was followed by some people she knew. What do we do?! A first-world problem. Should she block her new friends and go back to how things were before? Maybe. Should she keep her stream public? Maybe. If she did that though, should I keep my stream private? Could I remain monogamous with a polygamist?. I'd feel like a chump. The resolution was to both 'go public' on Instagram and set up a new, private account to keep our silly little world of daft faces and in-jokes alive.

So, should you want to, you can now follow me on Instagram. Just add me as davidgalletly.

My photos range from interesting-ish (like the photo above) to very, very dull. I guess that's true of most people. Maybe with audience of 2+, I'll put a little more effort in. Maybe I'll freak out and delete everyone. Welcome to the future David, it looks like 1978.

A 2011 Montage: 12 Photos Per Month

2011 Montage

For the 4th time now I’ve taken enough photographs to put together a montage covering the 12 months since the last New Year. Arranged chronologically, each row of the above image represents a month of 2011 using photos taken with my camera or my phone*. The previous ones are here: 2008, 2009, 2010.

This has become a tradition. I sit down, usually on New Years Day, and take a few hours sorting through iPhoto, dropping pictures into folders and sticking them together in Photoshop. The end result, while likely dull to anyone but myself and maybe a few of my friends is, to me, quite a special little thing. That 4400 x 3300 (full size) rectangle contains the 28th year of my life. I can’t change that. Not now, not ever.

For some months, the pickings were mighty thin. Maybe I didn’t do much, maybe I didn’t carry a camera. For others, there were so many photos that I had to be completely ruthless with my editing. It’s a hard balance weighing up how much I like a particular image with how much it represents a time or an event. I also try to include a good mixture of ‘important things’ (eg. a holiday / an exhibition) and ‘silly things’ (goofing off around the house / stuff we’ve eaten).

On the whole, 2011 has been a funny one. Small in some ways - I didn’t leave Scotland, I didn’t exhibit much, I put on a little weight. Big in others - I worked on some of my most important jobs (many of which I can’t talk about yet), I spent my first full year living with Alex and we passed the ‘6 months until our wedding’ milestone. I saw less of my friends and less of my parents than at any other time of my life. I made some ‘career’ decisions that I really regret and others that I’m really proud of. At some points I was very happy, at others I was very sad.

Mostly when I look back, one thought comes to mind: I wish I’d had more time. More time to draw. More time hanging out with Alex. More time alone. More time doing nothing. More time with friends and family. More time working for people I like, less time working for people I hate.

I may do a few more end of year / start of year posts over the next few days, I may not. I know they’re not that interesting to read, but they can be fun to write. Please stay tuned for more rubbish from me throughout 2012. I think it’s gonna be crazy. Thanks for reading my blog. I love you x

* owning a new, fancy phone has presented a problem this year - square photographs! Thanks to the likes of Instagram and Hipstamatic, I’ve actually taken more square pictures than rectangular ones. This has meant that, to keep things consistent, many of my best photos didn’t make the cut. I’m considering making a second, 12 x 12 square montage to fix this.