Welcome to my
Instagram Travel Thursday (#IGTravelThursday) debut!
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| Stand Up Paddling on the Yangtze River, old style (iphone3, 2009) |
Admittedly, I arrived late to the Instagram party - I only started using my IG account this year, in January 2013. When I did, I discovered I had somehow set up an account and taken one picture by phone and posted it to Instagram back in September 2011,
from a cruiseship in the mid-Atlantic, by satellite.
I don't think I had a clue what I was doing then, but apparently it got some likes, and when I decided to actively use my Instagram account this year, I discovered I already had over 100 (legitimate!) followers (twitter peer pressure)...and only one photo posted! With an audience already waiting, and with the Instagram "rights grab" issue being not such an issue after all, it was time to join the party.
I began with a "Best of 2012" series (#bestof2012), in which I shared the highlights of my 2012 travels still archived on my phone, basically flooding anyone's feed following me for that first week of this year. Sorry, I had a lot of catching up to do, having traveled to India, Colorado (winter and summer), Morocco, Florida, the Bahamas, Russia, UK, France, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and the Galapagos Islands all in one year. I thank those of you who stuck it through and are still following me now, and I appreciate the kind and encouraging comments.
I was also late to the iphone party, my first was the iphone3 which I got in mid-2009. As I thought about what to share for this, my first Instagram-themed post, I decided to open up the old backed up archives and take a look at my earliest iphone photos from 2009. What would they have looked like on Instagram?
Rather than flood my IG feed which is active enough with current travels (and surf, family, dogs), I'm starting a mini-series here on my blog, to give those old iphone travel photos their 5 minutes of, well, being seen somewhere other than on my phone or hard drive.
So here's what June thru December 2009 looked like by iphone,
instagramized with square crops (hey, it's a real word,
some dude in Nigeria used it in a blog so I'm going with it).
Alaska/Canada - August 2009 - a family trip, with just a few fun iphone shots.
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| Wooing Elk at Denali National Park, Alaska |
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| Sunny day in Ketchikan, Alaska |
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| Rock Climbing and Rapelling in Skagway, Alaska |
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| Huskie pup kiss, Juneau, Alaska |
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| Fort building on Tofino Beach, British Columbia |
Asia - September/October 2009 - I was away for 6 weeks, 2 jobs back to back from Nepal to China.
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| Stop over in Bangkok |
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| A first selfie attempt in Nepal |
I didn't take a whole lot with the iphone in Nepal because I was working with my Canon SLR 5DM2:
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| On location in Kathmandu, filming a documentary series |
If you want to see the final videos, I shared them here in this post:
Listening with the Lens.
Then I was off to China to escort a group of VIP guests on a
luxury tour. I use a local phone in China (and just about everywhere I travel), so I only thought to use the iphone very occasionally. And it's a good thing, as I clearly had not yet mastered the art of the "selfie" - in my defense, remember, this was before the phones had front-facing cameras. The best option was still to hand the phone to someone else.
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| Hosting Dinner at the St. Regis, Beijing |
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| An absolute *fail* selfie at the Great Wall |
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| Asking before taking pic in Daxu, China |
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| With my darling friend/guide June in Hong Kong |
Costa Rica - November 2009 - another family trip, with most of the time spent in the water. But even then I had a dry case for my iphone and wasn't afraid to (let my husband) use it.
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| Surfing the warm waters of Tamarindo |
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| Flight delay from San Jose? No problemo! |
Walt Disney World, Florida - December 2009
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| From the terrace at Kidani Village |
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| Anandapur in Animal Kingdom |
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| Back to the Future at Epcot |
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| This symbol began to appear in flight! |
As anyone who follows my Instagram now knows, between travels, I share whatever I find entertaining, and usually this involves kids, dogs, and surfing. Thus, this post would not be complete if I didn't also include some here.
Kids & dogs:
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| Cute cousins at the SD Zoo |
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| Composing cousins taking a break |
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| Dog Beach, Del Mar (Jambo) |
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| Dog Beach, Del Mar (Java) |
As for surf? Well, 2009 ended with a huge winter swell, and after watching this guy make his way back in with only half his board....
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| A literal winter surf break at Point Loma (Dolphin Tanks), San Diego, CA |
I headed to the OB Pier where high surf puts on a great show as the pier shakes!
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| Winter swell crashes along the Ocean Beach Pier, San Diego, CA |
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Had the fancy newly-introduced instagram video option been available then, I'd have shared this so you could also experience the waves up close and personal:
So, now you've made it through my first Instagram Retrograms post. You have your choice of #IGTravelThursday hosts to blame (or credit) for this nostalgic mini-series I'm now blogging, and each week I'll link to a different host. The fun is in checking out all the other links you'll find there too. This week I'm going with the place where the whole IGTravelThursday was born, Katja Presnal's
Skimbaco Travel.
BONUS! If you're on instagram, you are likely also familiar with the hashtag #tbt, which means "
Throwback Thursday", in which you instagramize an old photo (at least 5 years old), ideally, taking a picture with your phone of an old print to share it on instagram with the #tbt hashtag. So yeah, it's nostalgic, which means I'm all over it too, and every week I'll share a #throwbackthursday / #tbt photo on instagram too. Instagram, travel, and nostalgia...could Thursdays possibly get any more fun?
Don't worry, I'm traveling again in a couple of weeks and still have tons of recent travel stuff to share. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
