Why I changed the content I create.

Dear readers,

today I want to address the fact that I, almost suddenly, changed the content I create for my Instagram account.

If you follow me since my first internet appearance then you know that I have changed the content I create for my platform quite a bit. In December 2009 I started my YouTube channel. I mainly focused on beauty and hair videos. Around 2011 I slowly made a shift to fashion related videos. That's when I decided to make this blog to go along with my videos. On this blog I uploaded articles with pictures of the outfits I wore in the video and the links to all the items. That's why my website is called "Julia's Fashion Minute".

Making videos and writing articles along with it went well for a while. It was a lot of work but it was manageable. During this period I also made a switch to writing nail (art) related articles, just to change things up and create more content for my blog. Also because I was obsessed with doing my nails and recreating new nail art. While time passed by I slowly left YouTube, going from creating 3 videos a week to creating one video a month. However, I didn't change the amount of articles I wrote for my blog. I started to like blogging more and more, so it became my main platform. I felt that my website gave me the complete freedom I needed to create my content. Whereas YouTube gave me more pressure because I had to share the platform with other people.

Throughout these years I had an Instagram account but I didn't do much with it. When I started to take more professional photo's for my blog I also posted them on my Instagram account. Around three years ago I saw a shift, a lot of bloggers left their website/platform behind and moved to Instagram. I didn't feel much for it but I was intrigued by the make-up photo's on Instagram. While being in beauty school I met a famous Instagram beauty guru and she explained how she worked on Instagram. She also taught us how she took her make-up photo's. Since I already liked photography I was inspired by what she had told us. I tried to recreate the way she took her photo's at home and posted it online. My first eye make-up photo got a hate comment but somehow it didn't stop me. I liked photographing my eye make-up a lot. So I decided to continue, become better and grow.

Around four months later I started my bachelor degree in creative businesses (or as it was called back than media and entertainment management). I decided that filming and editing, which used to my hobby and I continued doing even though I had stopped doing YouTube, was going to be my career. This did mean that I no longer had a hobby. Somehow having a hobby was always very important to me. So I decided that eye make-up photography was going to be my new hobby.

The past year I have worn less and less make-up in my everyday life and I only applied it for my photo's. I still liked creating things but started to like creating make-up looks less and less. It began to feel like a chore. I started to realize this more and more when the Instagram algorithm changed and not only hit me in the amounts of likes I received but also in my follower amount.

I realised I loved the photography part of what I was doing but not the make-up part. At the same time I came to the conclusion that the work I liked the most on Instagram was no longer eye make-up but more towards advanced selfies and heavily photoshopped images.

That's why I decided to change direction. In a very short amount of time I learned myself how to use photoshop on an advanced level. By trail and error I came further. I started to post my work here and there on Instagram and saw myself grow. My interaction on Instagram grew along with this growth. I'm still growing when it comes to photography and photoshop. Not all my work is well received but the most important thing about it, is that I enjoy making it. I enjoy coming up with a concept and working on it. I don't mind that one post takes over 5 hours a week to create, from start to finish.

I don't know if I see myself still doing this in a year but at this moment I love how I combine my passion for photography with my passion for creating things and my obsession with photoshop. I stopped caring if other people like my art or not because I like it. I also like how I can share something with the world and everyone can give another meaning to my work.

I love that what I do now is called: advanced selfies and surrealism.