Bring Me To Colour
January 1st 2018 - fire breaks out in Leamington.
At the end of 2017 I was aware that I was very unhappy and didn’t 100% know why. It was then that I made the decision to make a secondary private Instagram account and post a picture a day. If the day went well and I was happy then I would post the picture in colour, for days that I would rather not have been on the face of the Earth for then, that would go in Black and White. The idea was that overtime I may spot a pattern of what makes me happy then I can replicate those moments and behaviours as well as banishing what I can of any bad influences.
I am still posting a picture a day now a year and eight months later. I have come to cherish the five minutes before I settle down at night reflecting on the day and deciding how I felt about it. It has come to signifying ‘the end of my day’ - some days have ended very early.
The Process
The process of posting a picture is very manual. Reflecting on my day needs to happen when I am alone, otherwise I can’t properly process my thoughts. When staying at a friend’s, I have waited until the next day or stolen myself the five minutes while they are in the shower to post my picture.
I learnt not to post videos - as fun as boomerangs are - because they can’t be printed easily. At the end of year one I printed out my year of pictures and put them into a photo album, it is a lovely was to reflect on my 2018 in concise snapshots of every day. Often it was hard to choose one photo for the day, I experimented with having multiple photos in one post. This was a mistake! It bloated my ‘pictures posted’ figure and I was using this as my ‘days I have been doing it’ solution. Putting multiple pictures into a layout so they appear as one image has been my preferred solution and works well for the year’s photo album.
With it being manual and self-managed there are no reminders and I have had to make it part of my routine. Instagram have made it harder for me recently in taking layouts out of my account. I now need to first go into the separate layout app and then post that image to Instagram for days that I wish to show more than one picture. When it came to the end of the year, I couldn’t group ‘my year’ and need some sort of grouping or dividing solution. I could have made another Instagram account, but I’d soon have been annoyed at managing ever more accounts/email addresses. My solution was to post an extra ‘2019’ image to act as a year break in the feed.
Breaking the Ice
I started this Instagram on January 1st 2018, it was easy to start a new routine with the phrase New Year, New Me being chucked around everywhere. On setting out on this experiment I nearly didn’t do it as I thought it’d be incredible boring – all it would turn out to be is pictures of what I have had to eat that day.
There I was thinking this, and my first photo was actually of a fire that broke out in a Leamington barbers. Amazing, how had I not realised my obvious photo-journalistic skill before!? This feed was going to be incredible, it’s a shame I wasn’t planning on sharing it. Sadly, the career was short live as the next day’s post was a pot of tea. I did however continue to surprise myself and realised that actually some exciting and quirky things do happen in my life. Yes, there are A LOT of food photos, but they’re scattered between books I have read, trips away and fears faced.
It was facing a fear which finally broke the bleak and dramatic black and white ice on the 23rd of January. After 22 days straight, I wasn’t sure if I was going to ever see colour on this profile. It turns out that having to go to the dentist when you are absolutely petrified had the right affect. The poor dentist finally managed to calm me down after 20 minuets of hysterics to get a needle in mouth and numb the necessary area, after that I didn’t care too much about what was happening. First lesson learnt - facing fears is worthwhile.
Being Honest
Initially I kept the profile to myself, I lived in a shared house with my best friend in the next room. Come February I was moving out and was worried that someone wouldn’t know if I was really down, because let’s face it when you feel like that the last thing you will want to do is talk to someone. So, I decided that she could follow me. From there another friend felt left out and people have crept into my followers since, I currently sit at 5 followers and really that is 5 too many.
The point of this is purely personal, it is hard enough being honest to yourself about how you feel without regarding how others will view your post. There was a definite shift in the posts when I allowed people in. With no followers, I was much more honest with how I felt. Not wanting people to view my post in a negative light, caused me to really consider which image I used, how I edited it and the comment which accompanied it. If a follower had been part of my day then there was extra pressure on the post later. Near my birthday I went out for a lovely meal with a friend who followed me. Before saying goodbye, I felt I had to explain that as lovely as the meal was, my day was going to be a black and white one. It was nothing against them but in general the day just wasn’t a colour one for me. Even though they said it is okay, it was probably taken more to heart than a black and white day that they weren’t involved in. There was also an aspect of not wanting people to worry about me.
There were days that I categorically knew were black and white but when it came to the post I was at odds with myself. I didn’t want to lose the effect that the picture had in colour. There was a battle to stay true to what the point of the feed is, over the picture being visually pleasing for me.
The Effect of Colour
When a colour day came along in a sea of black and white, I found the high of that day could carry itself through to a third day. The thrill of not feeling low on one day had a lasting effect. The beginning of 2018 seems to have been taken back to the dark ages as it was stripped of most of its colour. Slowly, the balanced shifted and a time came where the black and white photos were the outliers.
Once a healthy colour streak kicked in, it turned more into just posting a picture a day rather than tracking my mood. I had to remind myself that the point was for the picture to reflect my mood, not to just have a picture posted for the day.
Have You Missed a Day?
When I tell people what I have been up to they have said how it is a good idea, but quickly follow up this expression with asking “have you missed a day?”. This always surprises me - they obviously see it as a big commitment. The question also feels a little like they’re testing me.
On showing others my feed who don’t follow me and they spot being featured on it, the response has always been very warming. Almost as if they have entered a hall of fame, which sounds very pompous and self-loving but don’t worry my self-worth is actually very low. What I mean is that they know how important the feed is to me understand the gravity of featuring in it.
What have I learnt about myself?
On my colour days you will see me learning, facing fears, walking and being outdoors, getting up early making the most of the day, moving to a new home, new experiences, buying things (I interact with Amazon way too much), trips away, achieving goals and exercise.
Now for what brings me down. Unlike with colour days, the pictures for these don’t tend to be of the root cause. They’re general pictures of the day – if this was entirely private then maybe I would have been more explicit, but these moments also don’t tend to be photographed. Stress with work and the frustrations of being single feature strongly as reasons for those days. Mind, there are exceptions to this being ill is photographed in the many photos of Lemsip and Paracetamol. When setting out on this journey I was very aware of what made me unhappy, but not sure what made me happy. Because of this I think I have learnt more from the colour days than I have the black and white.
It has helped and continues to help me a lot. There have been moments I’d wished it was in a better format for both myself and for others to use. Overall, I see that I am resilient, proactive and the sooner I am in a position I can have a cat the better.