It’s #TravelTuesday and I, Dave Williams, am here as always, this week from the Lofoten Islands, Norway. I’ve been spending some time at Svinøya Rorbuer, a resort in Svolvær. Here’s a quick pro tip for those of you who are planning on a trip to the Lofoten Islands: – The weather here is wild and varied. There’s a snowstorm outside right now but just an hour ago I had crystal clear skies. For this reason I recommend that anyone visiting for photography bases themselves in the middle of Lofoten, here in Svolvær. The west has beautiful fishing villages such as Nusfjord, Å, Hamnøy, Sakrisøy and Reine, but staying there is a risk because of the weather. From here it’s easy to get to the west if the weather is clear, but just as easy to go east for clear, beautiful skies, even as far as Sweden or Finland in just a few hours. Here’s what I had here a couple of evenings ago.
This isn’t what I wanted to talk about today, though. Let’s get to the point – endless inspiration.
Sources of inspiration can sometimes be hard to find, so here’s a way to find an endless source: Follow Hashtags. Instagram is a great place for photos, despite the platform being inundated with video and showing us as much of it as possible. Finding a series of hashtags that we are interested in, such as #landscapelovers or #auroraborealis, and following the hashtags will give us an endless source of inspiration.
There is some advice to follow this, however. Follow specific hashtags rather than those that will have irrelevant content, such as #travel, which is all-encompassing.
Secondly, hit the Instagram icon in the top left on Instagram and you’ll see we have the option to switch to a feed that only displays those who we are following. Unfortunately this doesn’t include those hashtags, but it means we’ll only see the accounts we’ve decided to follow rather than have anything suggested to us.
Inspiration keeps our creative soul alive so having an element of control over our own inspiration on social media will help to keep us on track and filter out a lot of the ‘clutter’ that we’re presented with.
Much love
Dave
