when instagram disabled my account

Last Saturday morning I was lying in bed, loving the fact that I didn't have to be anywhere anytime soon, sipping my coffee and reading the last couple of pages of my book. If I listened carefully I could hear the sounds of the girls slowly waking up, Bren and a friend using power tools in the shed and the birds calling to each other through the forest. I was warm and content in my little bubble as I reached for my phone to have a look at what the rest of the world was up to.

I started with the comments that had come through in response to my blog posted the day before. Thoughts on sock knitting, bowl carving, dealing with difficult shop keepers... I love the way your comments keep the conversation going. Like my blog is not a static piece of writing but an ongoing collaboration, a conversation.

And then I read a few asking me about my Instagram account. Where was it? Had I decided to have a break from social media? Had I deleted it?

Of course I clicked over straight away sure that my photos would be right where I had left them the day before when I'd posted a picture of a little tea party we'd shared in Bren's shed amongst the wood shavings and tools.

But, instead of finding my photo stream or my profile, there was a log-in page asking for my details. Ahhhh that's easy enough, I thought to myself while filling in my user name and email address, I've been logged out, easily fixed. But instead of resuming normal activity, a little square came up advising me that 'Your account has been disabled for violating our terms. Learn how you may be able to restore your account.' Then a blue Learn More box underneath which I clicked on quickly. The next page it took me to asked me all sorts of questions about what sort of account mine was, where I was posting from and my personal details.

I think at this stage I was still thinking that I had been logged out accidentally and that once I'd filled in my details I'd have my account back in no time. Obviously I couldn't have violated any of their terms or conditions so nothing bad could happen, could it?

Initially I was texted a six-number code and asked to use it to verify my account, but I couldn't find anywhere I could enter it.

Then I received an email asking me to confirm that I am the owner of my account by taking a photo of myself holding a hand written sign that includes my full name, user name and a code supplied in the email. The photo had to be well lit, include both my hands holding the sign and my whole face. Unless I fulfilled their requirements they would not be able to help me.

Although by this stage I was starting to realise that my account wasn't just going to reappear, I didn't trust the 'Hi, Thanks for contacting us. Before we can help we need you to...' email either. It felt like some sort of scam.

Maybe I'd been hacked!

I fully remember the first time I ever heard about Instagram. It was 2011 and we were about a week away from heading off on our caravan adventure, having coffee with my sister Emily in Fitzroy. She, who had originally introduced me to the period tracker app that changed my life, showed me through an app that allowed you to put filters and frames on the photos you took on your phone. She said it was possible to then go on and share your edited photos with the world, but she chose not to. Before this we'd played with the Hipstermatic app that made our photos look old school, but Instagram felt a bit more user friendly and natural.

I also remember the first time I shared an Instagram photo for the world to see and I promptly tweeted that I hadn't realised that Instagram was actually a social media, complete with comments and likes and follows.

And there began the slippery slope:Travel around Australia in a vintage caravan, take pictures, geotag the pictures, explain in the caption what we were doing, post, follow friends and family back home as they caught on, look at their pictures, like their pictures. Repeat. And it was simple and a bit messy back then. We used lots of filters, posted everything unselfconsciously and often, popped our photos in frames and liked everything we saw.

When we got home and I wrote a book about our travels I used Instagram to publicise it, I started seeing our farm differently as I posted it in squares and people liked them. And then one day I posted a picture of a cute, yellow vintage caravan I saw and got a notification that it had hit the popular page. I still have no idea how that happened or what it meant, but it sent a truckload of followers my way and that felt good.

In 2014 I got an email telling me that I was one of Instagram's suggested users which again sent 1,000's of new followers my way. But as I clicked on many of their profiles and saw that they were sexy models wanting followers, scary guys posing with weapons or cash, and buy-lots-of-follower accounts, I started blocking them and feeling icky about my life being so public and accessible.

On July 6th 2015, Instagram published a short story about us on their blog called 'Growing food with love and integrity'. That felt very exciting and brought with it a lot of interest from all over the world, including a follow and a post from Jamie Oliver!! (I still get a kick when he likes my photos and watches my stories.)

Instagram sent me Christmas presents for a few years in a row and last September we attended a party they threw with a table laden with food that looked like a garden, boxes of fancy doughnuts, stickers, badges, speeches and a photo booth.

Basically, apart from a couple of spikes, my Instagram life has been pretty low key and full to the brim with photos of farming, knitting, mothering, travelling and other family adventures, sometimes slightly filtered, often rambly-captioned, occasionally hash-tagged, mostly taken on my phone, never sponsored, never stolen, and never sexy.

And although over the years I have questioned the algorithms, the designerness, the use of proper cameras, the fact that people have several accounts, the dodgy ways people go about accumulating followers, and the fact that it feels much less friendly and much more businessy than it used to, I feel like I have stuck to what works for me and been true to that.

Which brings us back to last Saturday and all the awful thoughts that were starting to run through my mind. Had my account been hacked? Had someone reported me? Would I ever get it back? Could someone else use my profile? Did I have all the photos saved? How would I let people know? How would I ever find some of the profiles again? Was this the end of @foxslane?

Eventually Bren came in, I filled him in and he started googling. There were stories about some celebrities being hacked but nothing yet about the little people.

I posted to twitter, I took the photo with the information Instagram had asked for and sent it to them, I posted on Facebook and then I waited.

I felt like I'd been punched in the guts but I didn't cry or make a fuss. In fact I think I was quite calm. When the girls came in and we told them they weren't all that empathetic which annoyed me, considering how hysterical they have been known to be when they close all the tabs on their computers by accident or think they might have deleted an essay. But they eventually came around.

Later that Saturday afternoon reports started dribbling in that other people had lost their accounts too, including this blog post, and that this was quite a wide spread thing. Somehow, once I was aware that it wasn't only me, I felt more secure in my faith that order would eventually be restored and that I'd get my account back in due course. It might have been naive faith but it helped me move on and enjoy the rest of the weekend in any case. Including a switched off, unphotographed fathers' day which I can't help but think might have been farmer Bren's best present of all.

On the three days that I was locked out I noticed that I posted to and read Twitter for the first time in years, I posted thoughts, videos and photos to Facebook that weren't related to my blog and I enjoyed the interaction, I left my phone in the charger for long stretches of time, I checked every few hours to see if my account was back, I worried about how I would ever contact some of the people I chat to in instagram daily but have no other way of finding, when people wrote to tell me they missed my feed, checked to see if it was back, or had written to Instagram about me it meant the world to me. People wrote me the kindest messages. I was in the dark but I didn't feel like I had been forgotten.

I seriously wanted to be the type of person who didn't care so much about being locked out of an app. My life is dirt under my finger nails, knitting cabled beanies, cooking food my kids won't eat and cutting myself a crooked fringe, I live in the real world. But I did care. I do care.

I thought a lot about how much power we give over to our personal lives in social media. How we can spend years building up these beautiful profiles and relationships only to have them deleted with no warning or reason. How much care we put into our photos and responses only to have the apps dictate algorithms that feel random and sometimes cruel. And how much I take for granted that what is there will always be there.

More than once over those three days I wanted to refer to a photo to remind me of the date or of how something looked, only to remember that I couldn't access the information. I have the photos saved in my library, but I need to find a way to back up the captions and comments and to be able to contact some people who I feel like I know so much about but don't even know how to contact in real life.

On Saturday Miss Jazzy informed me that she was upset that I'd had my account disabled because it meant she'd lost a follower!!

On Sunday I posted to Facebook -

things i didn't get 2 post on instagram this weekend - sock knitting, wooden bowl carving, bundt cake baking, daffodil picking, organic farming - pretty controversial, no wonder instagram blocked me

On Monday I heard that people were slowly getting their accounts back and so I had confidence that it was only a matter of time until I had mine. On Monday it also snowed which was a bit mean considering I couldn't post videos and photos of the beauty. And seriously, if it snows and you don't post it on social media - did it even snow?

And then on Tuesday morning it was there! Everything exactly as I'd left it. Phew.

I had an email from Instagram informing me that it was back and 'we apologise for any inconvenience caused' but no reason for the inconvenience.

And aside from lots of lovely comments on my photos, that's about it. I'm happy to be back but I'm slightly more wary too.

So there you have it. That's my locked out of Insta story. If you're reading this because it's happened to you and you've found me through googling it, I hope it brings you some comfort - you are not alone.

So how about you?
Are you a social media addict?
Do you feel like you control your social media or does it control you?
Have you had a scary app moment?
Is all your online stuff backed up?
Do you ever wonder about all that data out there and what happens if it all disappears?

Have fun out there!

Love Kate

xx

fifth

Our Fox Lane family spent most of the fifth day of the new year in Ballarat shopping for jeans, and boots, and archery supplies, and art supplies and undies. It's wasn't a day that I had particularly been looking forward to but I have to say it went pretty smoothly and we actually even enjoyed ourselves. 

On the way home in the car my farmer boy asked me what I planned to blog about this evening and it occurred to me that I still had no idea. He suggested, jokingly, that I tell you all about our shopping trip. Lucky for you guys I didn't take a single photo and have no inclination to do so whatsoever. It did make me realise two things though; The first being that I am not the type of blogger to plan out or schedule posts but rather make them up as I go along. And the second being that my blog posts are still not speaking to me during the day and letting me know what to write about. I know that when I am deep in the blogging routine I often hear whispers of suggestions, themes, words and story ideas as I go about my day. I'll get there I'm sure but at the moment it gets to about six in the evening and you'll find me racing about taking a few snaps and then tapping out the words. Maybe I should write myself a little list.

So this after shopping post is a discussion of eight photos that I just snapped. Here we go.

The first is a photo of a quince, still a while off but beautifully fuzzy and photogenic. There aren't all that many on the trees this year but looking at them I can almost smell that sweet aromatic haze that hangs over the kitchen when I'm chopping them, cooking them, leaving them to drip through muslin and then cooking the rosey red liquid and ladling it into jars. It won't be long and we'll be back there again.

The second photo is of an article I wrote and a photo I took in the latest issue of Slow Living magazine. I wrote about how we use craft to help us through challenging times and I included a simple pattern for a crochet washcloth.

That photo makes me want to print it out and get Pepper to hold it, and then take another photo and print it out and get Pepper to hold it, and then take another photo and print it out and get Pepper to hold it....

The third photo is of a project I have planned. I really, really, really want to get back into sewing clothes. Especially after a big shopping day out.

Somehow I bought two copies of the Dottie Angel pattern, so keep your eyes on this space for a giveaway I'm putting together very soon.

The fourth photo is of a present that instagram sent me in the mail today to celebrate the new year. Crazy!! Inside that cute bag is a sweet animal calendar.

Maybe I should write out the story of some of my big instagram stories from last year and pop them on the blog. Maybe that's number one on the what to blog about list!

Sorry about the fifth photo I know it's a bit scary. Jarrah and Pepper were so inspired by the tree change dolls and their story that they wanted to make their own. First we took a trip up to the Daylesford Sunday market where they bought a few scary looking specimens, now they're stripping the paint off them and later they'll repaint them, do their hair and dress them like normal kids. Hopefully I'll show you the after shot in the next few days.

The sixth photo is for Reannon who asked how we trellis our tomatoes. But now that I'm looking at it I can see that my photo doesn't explain the process at all because I've cut out the important bits, and now it's getting too dark to take another. Oops!

Basically we bang in wooden stakes as we plant the tomatoes out into the ground. Then we use bits of old tee-shirts to loosely tie the middle, thickest, straightest stem up and that becomes the trunk. As the plant grows we tie the trunk up further up the stake. Does that make sense?

We're still waiting patiently for our first red tomatoes here. We were late planting because of our trip but still.....

The seventh is a plan I am desperate to put into action.

Oh and there's movement on the Daylesford Organics wool project. I'll let you know as soon as it's definite but it's all getting very exciting. Farmer Bren even sent me a text message today filled with tiny sheep. Eeeeeeep!! Or rather shEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!

And the eighth and last is of a granny smith apple. So close but yet so far.

And that's my eight on the fifth!

I hope you've had a gorgeous day. Or are about to.

Big love,

Kate xoxo

Five instagram Fridays

Five Fridays have passed since I first told you about The Centre of Contemporary Photography's instagram competition. Five weeks of wondering and exploring the one word prompt given to us, five weeks of taking lots of maybe shots, and five weeks of considering the way I use instagram, the way the other contestants use instagram and what that all means in the scheme of things.

And of course it means five Fridays of uploading the final photo, five Fridays of refreshing my feed constantly to see what the other participants have posted and five Fridays of second guessing myself, of feeling happy, of feeling unprofessional, cliche, inadequate, proud and pleased.

So let me take you on a journey back through those last five Fridays and tell you a bit about the story behind each of my photos.

WEEK 4 | STRANGER

I had spent the few days before the fourth Friday at The Slow Living Workshop and even though I'd had my phone out taking pics the entire time, and even though I had an idea that I'd like to submit something with flowers, I drove out of there thinking that I would have to post my entry a day after. That a Saturday photo would have to be better than no photo at all.

But late that night, sitting in my car waiting for Indi to finish her school production, I found this one amongst the millions I'd taken that week. It felt perfect. Like it represented the theme and my few days exactly. The stranger in black, the contrasting yellow of the wattle and the incredibly beautifully styled table.

I captioned it - I find these internet friendships we form so interesting. We are strangers yet we know intimate details about each other's lives.



WEEK 5 | TIME

My caption - These two and their sister. Their wobbly teeth, their birthdays, their new centimetres, their new tricks, their insights, their favourite songs, their squabbles, their seasons, their accomplishments, the books they finish, the year levels they complete, each day, each hour, each minute.

I woke them up at 5.30am that Friday. Jazzy wouldn't get up. Thankfully these two did. And thankfully the greys turned to blues, turned to golden orange and became awesome. Hand holding children and sunrises are totally cliche, but for a good reason I think. There are not many more humbling experiences than watching night become day, then watching it through their eyes, and then watching them become who they are to be.



WEEK 6 | UP CLOSE

No caption this week. No close up of beach washed up pebbles, no close ups of tropical flowers or leaves or fruit.

Our Indi. On the walk through the jungle from the beach back to the house. Sandy hair, holiday face, content.



WEEK 7 | MIRROR IMAGE

It took me a week to get this shot. Each morning for a week I'd run past the Port Douglas marina at 6.30 and hope for the best, but each day it was too windy and the ripples in the water disturbed the shot I hoped to take.

Until the seventh Friday. On that day I ran, I photographed just in case and not until I got home and flicked through my photo stream did I realise I'd gotten it. I flipped it for fun, didn't caption it and posted it before 8am, record!!



WEEK 8 | CONTRAST

Last Friday morning I walked through our forest with a bucket of watered down clay we had taken from our dam and a paint brush. I chose three blackened trees, loaded some podcasts on my phone and got to work painting stripes.

I borrowed this idea from our wonderful friend and local artist Petrus Spronk. A few months ago he came over to our house and shared a DVD of his own works using clay to paint the trees near his home. He is fascinated with the horizontal stripes in the vertical forest. And we all loved hearing the stories of his beautiful images as much as we loved looking at the photos of them.

Totally and completely inspired, I asked his permission to paint some of our own blackened forest and to my delight he agreed.

So on the eighth Friday I painted, and while it wasn't exactly easy to make even stripes on the charred bark, it was meditative. And when I finally stood back, I liked what I saw. And I photographed it and then I came down the hill to the house and posted it. I love that I can see the stripy trees from my kitchen window when I am doing the dishes.

My caption reads - Horizontal lines in an otherwise vertical forest. White dam clay against the 2009 bushfire burnt trees. With love and gratitude for the concept to my artist friend Petrus Spronk.

And that's it! Until this Friday of course. Better get my thinking cap on.

If you are following this on instagram I'm sorry for the repetition.
If you'd like to see my first three pics you can check them out here.
You can click on the #ccpsalonig hashtag on instagram to see what the other nine grammers are posting.
And if you feel like it you can even join in too by posting your own responses to the prompts using the #diyccpsalon hashtag.

Phew, did you get all that? I hope so.

I also hope you are well and happy.

Until next time, may your light be just right.

Big love! xx

My Fridays on instagram

I sometimes wonder a bit about how much my online worlds interconnect. If I post my new knitting project on Ravelry have you seen it before I get around to tweeting it? If I tell you a funny story on Facebook is it doubling up to blog it too? And if I write about something that is going on in my life as the caption to my Instagram picture, can I assume that most people who are interested in my goings on will have read it as a bite sized chunk and so there's no reason to tell it anywhere online again?

I have no idea.

But just in case you didn't see this on my instagram, and if you did I'm sorry to be repeating myself, there's this cool thing that I'm taking part of that I thought you might like to know about too.

A few weeks ago 10 Melbourne instagrammers were contacted by The Centre of Contemporary Photography (CCP) in Melbourne, inviting us to take part in their inaugural instagram competition. And I was one of them, can you believe it?!! I certainly couldn't.

The rules are that each participant must post a photo each Friday for ten Fridays using a one word prompt provided. Other than that we would be free to use instagram however we liked.

At first I felt honoured and humbled and majorly overwhelmed to be included amongst such incredible photographers. I think I even jumped up and down a bit too. And then I promptly panicked and wrote back an email stating the ten reasons why there was no way I could play along. The first one being how incredibly talented and professional and arty the other nine photographers are. I thought I would feel silly taking my usual photos of wool and chickens and children alongside their masterpieces.

But then after a good long think, and a few kind pep talks from my peeps, I decided to play along. But I would be trying my hardest not to be intimidated, not to second guess myself and not to try and recreate anyone else's style. And I would post iPhone photos only, edited on my phone only, taken on or as close as possible to the same day as posting only. 

So each Friday we'll be posting our pics using the hashtag #ccp_australia. Each week there will be a different theme and each week I'll be hyperventilating while I work out what to post and hope to goodness that I don't make too much of a fool of myself while doing so.

The first theme was BEGINNINGS and my photo was the springtime one up above.

I think the first one was the hardest because I didn't know what to expect from the others. But around lunchtime as I was gathering veggies from the garden for dinner and flowers for the table, I had the brainwave to lay them out on the ground like that.

I tried doing the writing with seeds, then with petals before the chalk. Our dog ran through it a few times and I panicked as the others started posting their clean, stunning pics. But eventually I took a big deep breath and posted it. It's earthy and messy but then again so am I.

The second week's prompt was TEXTURE.

We moved all our flocks of chickens through the forest that Friday morning and I considered every wood-pile, every fallen branch, every bit of moss and every other interesting textural bit of forest I came across, but in the end I decided I wanted something brighter.

So at about five o'clock, just when I thought the light would be just right, I carried a chair and a pile of blankets I'd made down the hill to the back of the bottom shed. But no matter how I tried I couldn't get the shot I wanted.

I spent the next ten minutes running up and down our hill chucking those blankets on things, against things and underneath things before coming home and snapping the picture above. Sometimes simple just works better.


Last Friday's word was LIGHT.

All week I'd imagined something to do with feathers - light as a feather and all that. And it just so happened that last week our pullet flock started losing their baby feathers and I amassed quite the collection.

But out of the three, this last photo is the one I am least happy with. Although it has light and feathery light, and although it is earthy and farmy, I still don't think it is me. I feel like I tried something and it didn't quite work.

Luckily I've only got a few days before this Friday's entry to make myself feel better.

You can click on the #ccp_australia hashtag to check it all out for yourself and if you like you can even play along using the #diyccpsalon hashtag. Come November all the 100 photos will be printed out and hung as a proper exhibition and you can go along and see them there too. Wow!

Oh and these three photos were taken on my camera, but if you want to have a look at the proper instagram versions, please come and find me, I'm @foxslane over there too.

Anyway, enough about me, how about you?
Do you have your own rules for your instagram posting?
Do you feel like everyone's just repeating themselves, repeating themselves all over social media?
Do you think you might like to play along with this Friday's CCP prompt too?



I hope your light is just right.
Happy snapping!

xx