I'm getting quite into running Mostly Comedy's new Instagram account.
My wife - who's our resident photographer
- set it up recently, as an extra way of sharing the photos taken at and around the gig,
to create more interest and a bit of a conversation around the show. In a way, it's surprising
I don’t have my own Instagram account, as I've always enjoyed taking
pictures. It's my last bastion of social media, what with already being on Twitter and
Facebook (the second one reluctantly).
Without wishing to sound biased, my wife
is one of Mostly Comedy’s unsung heros, particularly when it comes to her
photography. Her pictures are excellent and make for a fantastic record of the
event from its early days to now. While she's documented the majority of the gigs
we've run, her photos rarely see the light of day outside of our posters and
the odd Twitter upload. Glyn and I keep meaning to set up a gallery on our
website, but something always gets in the way; until then, they sit on our hard
drive, collecting proverbial dust.
Every few years, I put together a book of
her Mostly Comedy photographs as a Christmas present. There are three so far, which
chart the gigs chronologically, and flicking through them makes for a
ridiculous story. The rate at which the club grew is mad, and the fact we
have so many vivid pictures helps bring the shows back to life in a very
special way.
The account is great for creating a
running commentary on a show as it happens. The way people express their
enjoyment (or otherwise) of a live event has changed so much, even in the eight
years since Mostly Comedy began. These days, people post pictures or tweets while the show’s on, and the fact we can do the same, helps give a
point-of-focus for all this commentary. We already encourage a Mostly Comedy
hashtag - and with Glyn, my wife and I all manning the Twitter and Instagram
accounts mid-gig, we up the chance of catching the audience's posts and adding
to them ourselves. This is helped by the fact my wife can now upload photos taken on her camera mid-show too, so people get to see a good-quality visual representation of it
instantly.
Our Instagram account is in its early days
and is already proving fun. It's nice to share pictures from the archives as
well as the more current ones. We may even start posting
pictures of our dinners too; everyone else does it.