Behind every Instagram photo
The stress of exposing every detail of our existence in the social media limelight sure is tough. Come on, we all know the truth behind social media. With every 40 potential #ootd or selfie pictures, you’ll get one or two marginally decent photos that make it to your Instagram feed while the others get permanently stuck in limbo in your phone gallery, never to see the light.
As a fellow Instagrammer, I feel you. My name is Sandra and I am an Instagram addict. Now let’s talk about 10 first world problems instagrammers like you and I face waaay too often.
1. It’s a good hair day but my selfies are all grainy
Once in a while, we’ll have one of those days when our hair decides to behave and we put in a little extra effort to look like we’re not dead on the inside. Days like these call for a couple of well-deserved selfies to boost our self esteem. But you can’t werk it when all your selfies look like they’ve been taken with the camera quality of your first ever Nokia phone, can you?
What’s the point of looking #flawless for a day when my selfies are covered in grains?! Pfft, It’s ok – it’s not like I needed the validation or anything. I said it’s ok! Oh well, back to looking painfully average tomorrow.
2. Taking photos at night is completely impossible
You know where I’m going with this. It’s after a nice alfresco dinner and you want to take a cute group photo with your friends. You ask the waiter to help you take a photo and he asks if the photos are ok and no, they are far from ok.
None of the photos are instagram-worthy and you and your friends either look like woodland creatures with glowing eyes or just creepy black figures blending in with the darkness. That’s great, thanks to the horrible night lighting, no one will know that I have friends and a life if I don’t post anything on social media. Sigh.
3. Framing the perfect hipster shot? Not today.
A foolproof formula to every hipster photo involves a clean background, a random magazine like Kinfolk, stalks of dried flowers and a cup of coffee. Basically anything that screams “look at how cool and sophisticated I am”.
But sometimes no matter how you position all your random crap, nothing seems to work and you just can’t frame your shot right. Before you know it, your coffee’s gone cold and everyone’s been judging you for the last 15 minutes.
4. When no amount of filters can hide the blemishes and designer bags under your eyes
You know that feeling when you want to take a picture but your camera is on selfie mode and you get a mini heart attack looking at a potato with 4 chins that also happens to be your face. Yup, happens to me at least twice a week.
In cases where the bags under your eyes are blacker than your soul and the occasional stress pimples make an appearance, all the filters in the world won’t conceal the after effects of staying up late. Sorry John Legend but these imperfections are far from perfect. I guess it’s just another unusable selfie tossed in the digital trash.
5. Taking candid shots just come out as a mess of blurriness
Let’s face it, we’ve all been through that “step” phase. When looking straight and smiling becomes too mainstream and you want to look candid, laughing at absolutely nothing and smiling at any direction besides the camera is the next best alternative. All about that Instagram life amirite? Gotta fake it till you make it.
Unfortunately, the stares of judgment are only worth it if you get nice shots. The real tragedy happens when amidst the spam of photos taken by your kind friend who took up what’s left of your memory space, none of the photos are clear because your phone camera was too laggy. I feel your pain in times like this.
6. Stretching as far as you can for wefies is just not enough
The wefie situation is a tough one when you’re trying to cram your entire clique into one photo and all of you sucked at sit and reach. What do you do when your hands are too short and you don’t want to invest in a selfie stick? Sadly, the compromise is that wefies like this usually involve some unfortunate soul being awkwardly cut out of the picture.
The people in the middle are usually safe but the true test of friendship lies in who gets “sacrificed” in the process. Treasure your friendships before the next wefie opportunity arrives. May the wefie odds be ever in your favour..
7. When the photo looks nice, but the alignment is 0.1936° off
The problem here isn’t the photo itself – you’re actually proud of the sweet shot but the alignment just doesn’t look right and your OCD habits start making your fingers itch. After about 20 minutes of fumbling between going back and forth, rotating too much to the left and then to the right, you’re just about done with life and ready to punch someone in the face. The best you can do is settle with your post looking a tad bit off centre and pray no one notices.
8. Taking an #ootd and people blatantly walk into the shot
The wind is making your hair look all glamorous, your outfit is on point and you’re in the Asia’s Next Top Model zone but none of that matters if people blatantly walk into the frame every time you strike a pose. In the good name of #OOTDs, do people not have the basic courtesy to respect this sacred process?!
There’s so much effort that goes into an OOTD. I did *not* squat awkwardly, stand precariously, or hold my breath to tap that centre button just so you can walk past at the right moment. Geez people, please.
9. Stalking someone only to find out their account is private
It’s not stalking if their account isn’t private. Just saying. Scrolling through someone’s Instagram feed tells you everything you need to know about a person – who their friends are, whether they’re a party animal and most importantly, if they’re single or not.
Needless to say, having access to someone’s feed is vital and clicking on some cute guy’s profile just to find out his account has been made private is heartbreaking. Now you’ll never know what he wore last Thursday or what he ate for lunch 3 weeks ago. So much for true love.
10. Accidentally liking someone’s picture from eons ago
This one is social media suicide. Don’t even try to deny this, you know you’ve done it before, more times than you’d care to admit. As you happily scroll through your new eye candy’s feed, your backstabbing fingers decide to spaz and double tap that photo from 42 weeks ago. Your heart sinks into a dark abyss of FML and the rest is history.
If you don’t know the person, you have nothing to worry about because it’s not like you’re going to see them any time soon. If you do know the person, brace yourself for awkward smiles and pretending nothing happened.
Solve your Instagram woes!
Jokes aside, get a good camera phone and half the Instagram battle is won. Some problems can’t be fixed because of human error – you can’t stop someone from walking into your frame unless you’ve got a steel barricade – but you can get a camera that understands how photos are taken in the social media generation.
A quick rundown of Huawei G8’s camera features
- The Huawei G8 breaks selfies down scientifically, using a special algorithm to enhance your facial features so you’ll always stay on point – never worry about those designer bags under your eyes or any blemishes ever again!
- Set the camera to the Perfect Selfie Mode and it’ll recognize you even when you’re in a group, beautifying your features instantly so you’ll always look the most flawless in group shots.
- With a 13MP BSI camera with optical image stabilisation and a 28 mm wide-angle lens, you’ll be able to capture mind blowingly sharp images even in the most horrible lighting conditions, so no more grainy pictures!
- You’ll also be able to take equally instagram-worthy pictures at night with the dynamic front facing flashlight that highlights figures in the foreground and complements skin tone perfectly
- Before you start tearing your hair out from trying to frame your shot perfectly, the Smart Composition feature gives you suggestions on how to make your picture flawless and hipster-approved. Gone are the days of wondering how to position your props for the perfect shot!
There you have it, the newly launched Huawei G8 is the perfect device to bring your Instagram game to the next level. If you want to find more about the Huawei G8 or any of their other cool tech gear, head down to their Facebook page or get your G8 today!
This post was brought to you by Huawei Singapore.