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Sep 20, 2017
2 min read

Wow! Can I just say wow again? I have a beautiful vintage painting I'm about to start. I dreamed about it last night. This morning I was all set to put paint to the canvas and then stuff happened! According to the experts, I need a web page, FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Gooogle+, a blog, LinkedIn, Pinterest and the list no doubt goes on. I had most of those so that wasn't a huge issue. A few required some modification but hey that's just the way it goes. My personal hell today has been Instagram. I know for all of the experts out there it's not that complicated and I agree. The issue becomes syncing a thousand accounts, insuring that the branding is correct and then making it happen. With Instagram, the challenge was figuring out how to upload a photo. I know this is simple if you took the photo from your phone. It's a whole different story if you need to upload from a computer. I think it's important to say at this point, I am not computer illiterate. In fact, I'm quite well versed. In a past life I did some web design, hand coded HTML, created Flash animations etc., but this was different. I live a quiet life on the beach in Ecuador. The technology here leaves a lot to be desired. I don't go out and randomly take photos of my artwork, I use a Canon DSLR camera and I do so at home.

Instagram is the best friend of the photo taker on the go. The person who is all over the place and takes a gazillion photos with their phone. Me, I rarely even use my phone never mind for the purposes of taking photos. So, the challenge was to somehow figure out not only how to modify a thousand accounts but to figure out how to show you my painting in the sky. Let's be honest, other than holding up the canvas to the sky and taking a photo, I think logic dictates that I had a bit of work to do to make it happen. What started as a fun thing to do turned into a nightmare of making platforms agree. I was even in the developer tools. Talk about scary! I was sure that I was going to do something that would mess up everything. Then a light, no maybe a beacon hailed me. Send a photo to yourself on a mobile device, save it and upload. How simple is that?! Yup, hours of not painting was a simple matter of sending a photo. Sure I feel a bit stupid but tomorrow I'll be smarter and I'll get back to my vintage painting - and will be all the happier for it!