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What I do for a living, and why I don’t talk about it much

November 23, 2018 3 Comments

If you’ve come over from Instagram to read this, you’ll probably know that I’m coming to the end of my second maternity leave with my son, Wilf, who is now 10 months old, and that I’m due to return to work in January. I’ve received a lot of messages over the past few weeks asking what it is that I do for a living, and when I’ve answered – I’m a doctor, training in general practice – I’ve had a few people ask me why I never talk about it, or why it isn’t in my Instagram bio. And I’ve had a couple of messages to the effect of, “it’s a bit odd that you share so much of your day to day life, your family, your home; but you don’t want people to know what you do?”

I get it. I mean, I do choose to share a lot on Instagram, sometimes quite personal insights into my life and how I feel about things, and your career is a big part of your life. One of the beauties of Instagram is that you can find like-minded people, and really feel like you get to know them through their posts and stories. Maybe a couple of those who messaged me felt that they thought they knew me from watching me on Instagram, and now it looked like I’ve been hiding something. But I’m not trying to hide it – not now anyway. It’s just that to me, my work completely unrelated, and separate, from my non-work life, which is what my Instagram account is about.

| So why do you choose to compartmentalise your work life?

Medicine is a vocation. It takes years and years to train, and many doctors live and breathe it. It becomes a huge part of their identity. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that at all, if you’re happy with living like that. I felt like that for a while: I was working full time as a junior doctor in a hospital, sometimes working as much as 90 hours in a week, so that you felt like you were at work more than not. I did actually spend a whole year living in hospital accommodation when I first graduated, so I literally never left. Most of my friends were doctors. My husband was a doctor. My in laws were also doctors. Some evenings Ben and I came home and just talked about work, and I’ve been to dinner parties where it’s 99% ‘medic chat’.

I was finding it all quite stifling, and I felt like I’d lost my personal identity as anything other than ‘doctor me’.

Then I became pregnant with Oscar, and went on maternity leave. That’s also when I joined Instagram, and I started using it ‘properly’. Over the next year or so, I felt like a wall around me broke down, bit by bit, and I found it incredibly liberating. I recognised that I used to be so creative, but that I hadn’t been for the best part of ten years. I went crazy with these long-suppressed creative urges and it felt amazing.

I took photos; all my inspiration came from what I saw on Instagram. It was completely whimsical but I thought it was wonderful. I discovered flatlays. I styled shelves. I didn’t even know shelves could be styled, but other people were doing it, and it made them look pretty lovely. I learned calligraphy. I re-taught myself to knit. I played with flowers and made wreaths. I wrote. I hadn’t written creatively in over 10 years and it all came back to me, slowly, like it was a foreign language that I used to know.

I feel like I started my maternity leave as ‘Hannah the doctor’ – it was very much part of my identity, but I don’t think it represented me very well. I was suppressed creatively. It felt quite all-encompassing. I ended my maternity leave as ‘Hannah’. SO much happier. I felt like me. And I felt like a far more well rounded individual; balanced. Whilst I was at work, I dedicated 100% into my work, as being a doctor is so much more than just a job to pay the bills. But when I left work, I could leave it behind. I didn’t take it home with me. I was a mum, I had a few hobbies that I loved, I had new friends and I came home and chatted to Ben about anything and everything, not work (well, mostly!).

I’ve taken this separation between ‘work me’ and ‘non-work me’ quite literally, as I have chosen to practice under my family name, and live under my married name, and I have chosen to take the title ‘Mrs’ rather than ‘Dr’ in my non-work life. I’m proud to be a doctor, don’t get me wrong, but for me, I realised that I didn’t want it to be such an intertwined part of my life and identity. I know some others who feel the opposite, and are happy to carry their ‘Dr’ title publicly, introduce themselves as doctors at parties they attend, and feel that as a vocation it is natural that it is an integral part of their identity. I totally respect and admire that.

| Well, that was a bit of a monologue. Anything else to add?

So, I guess there are a few other reasons that I enjoy to be known as ‘Mrs’ rather than ‘Dr’ to anyone other than close friends, and why I avoid talking about my job if I am casually asked.

One is that subconscious (or conscious) assumptions are made by some people, in my experience, when they find out that I am a doctor, and I find that often they are wrong assumptions – so I prefer to avoid them being made. One example of this, is when I was a first time mum with a newborn Oscar. My midwife on the postnatal ward seemed to think that I should know exactly what I was doing, and didn’t offer to help with breastfeeding, and I felt she was quite dismissive when I asked for help – as if there were others more in need of assistance than me.

Another reason is that I like to avoid getting into any political discussions, or be on the receiving end of rants about the NHS, and you’d be surprised how many times I’ve told someone what I do for work, to be met with, “Oh, you know I saw my GP this week and s/he was absolutely dreadful. No help at all!” Or even worse, “Oh, you know my wife/aunt/dog has this terrible cough and we simply can’t get an appointment with our GP, could you take a look?” I’ve found it’s far safer to tell Mr X at the neighbour’s Christmas party that I’m a photographer, or even better, a content creator – they’ll look at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language and move on!

| Well, now we all know. The cat’s out the bag. Are you going to become a medical blogger or something now?

No, no. Definitely not! I’m Hannah Straughan, and I write about family, parenting, our home life, travel, photography, Instagram, knitting, flowers – or whatever I fancy. But there may be some posts in the future, where I will talk about topics such as childbirth choices, or breastfeeding issues, and whilst I will not be issuing any medical advice, they will inevitably take on a slightly different perspective given that I have a medical degree.

So there we go. This wasn’t intended to be any kind of big ‘announcement’; it isn’t, and it wasn’t supposed to be so wordy, but as usual once I started thinking about it all and writing, it kept coming. Please do shoot if you have any thoughts or questions at all!

Hannah x

All images by Melia Melia.

Instagram, Lifestyle, Nature, Photography, Tips

How to make your own floral crown

June 14, 2018 No Comments

I’ve got a bit of a love affair going on with flowers, and it’s growing stronger by the day. I’ve always been an admirer of all things floral, but I think it was around the time that I had Oscar, and I started using Instagram regularly, that I really fell head over heels. When Osc was tiny, like so many other parents I used to go for daily long, long walks with the pram, as for a while it was the only place he’d settle in the daytime. Our walk usually took us past one of the two street flower stalls in York, and treating myself to a bunch of blooms became a bit of a tradition that has stayed with me since then. Rather than buying a pretty mixed posy, I tended to go for one or two different types of stem, usually inexpensive types, and often a bunch of foliage such as ruscus or eucalyptus too. I loved taking them home, unwrapping them and having five quiet minutes to myself to trim each stem and arrange them, appreciating each bloom. It was my little bit of mindfulness in the midst of a chaotic day.

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I love a floral wreath or crown, and with the summer solstice coming up soon I thought it would be nice to share with you how to make your own floral crown to wear. It’s so simple to do, I promise! In Sweden, the summer solstice is widely celebrated and it’s a tradition for women to make and wear floral crowns. That’s a good enough reason for me to as well! I actually took these photos quite a while back, but I never made use of them. I’m going to be making another floral crown this year though, and I will share the finished result on my Instagram – I’m thinking bigger and blousier than the ones I’ve made before!

| How to make your own floral crown

What you’ll need:

A selection of blooms and foliage of varying sizes and complementary colours. I used garden roses, stocks, sweet william, astilbe and jasmine, which are all available at this time of year. Try foraging in your own garden for supplies – you only need a couple of sprigs of each variety.
A short section of stiff florists wire (or any covered wire), cut to length to fit over your head from ear to ear, like an alice band.
Florists tape
Scissors or secateurs
A length of ribbon, around 1m long
Some thin florists wire to secure and larger flower buds (optional)

Florists tape and wire can be found in craft stores or online – I bought mine from Hobbycraft.

| Step 1

Cut your blooms to length. Aim for a 1-2 inch stem. Shorter stems will make a neat, compact crown (but make sure they are still long enough to tape down!) while longer stems, or those of varying length will make a more wild-looking crown.

| Step 2

If you have any larger blooms it can hep to anchor them with thin wire, although you don’t have to do this. Cut around 4 inches or wire and bend in half, like a hair grip. Insert into the centre of the flower, from front to back, and pull so that the wire is concealed. Twist the wire ends. You now have a flower head on a wire stem, which is easier to build into your crown and bend into position.

| Step 3

Take your stiff wire, which is now shaped like an alice band. Wrap the ribbon around the wire, starting from the centre outwards, and tape into place. You should have enough free ribbon on each end to tie around the back of your head.

| Step 4

Start to build your flower crown!

And there you have it! One flower crown, perfect for wearing for summer solstice celebrations, music festivals, photo shoots or just to do the washing up! I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this and feel inspired to give it a go; if you do make your own floral crown I would absolutely love to see it! You can share it with me by tagging me in your photo on Instagram – I’m @hannah.straughan. I’m thinking of doing a similar post to show you how to make your own winter wreath; it’s using a different method to this, it’s super simple and looks amazing. Let me know if that’s something you’d like to see!

Hannah x

Instagram, Photography, Tips

My photo editing tricks and tips

June 1, 2018 4 Comments

Photo editing. Love it or loathe it, it’s an essential process for professional and amateur photographers alike, and can take an image from ‘meh’ to ‘WOW’. I’d go as far as saying that unless you’re an exceptionally talented photographer, it’s all about the editing, and it takes practice to get better at. If you’re an Instagrammer, the importance of great photo editing goes beyond improving each individual photo; having a consistent photo editing style is necessary to achieve that cohesive ‘look’ that makes your Instagram gallery look beautiful, and will draw people in to click that follow button.

I’ve put together this post after I had a few people asking about my photo editing process, so whether you’re taking taking photos for your blog, want to up your Instagram and move towards your own cohesive editing ‘look’, or simply enjoy photography as a hobby, I do hope you find these tips and tricks helpful.

| The ABC of photo editing

A. Correct

First up, photo editing is essential for fixing those basic mistakes we all get in photos. Crop, straighten, tweak the exposure and temperature – even professional photographers need them.

B. Enhance

This is where the magic happens! Add a filter, selectively deepen some colours or brighten your subject. There are now apps which allow you to add special effects such as rain, fog, sparkle or lens flare. Or you can delve into photoshop and create a whimsical make-believe scene with endless possibilities! Read on to find out which apps I use and would recommend to you to enhance your photos.

C. Develop your own style

There’s no secrets or tricks to this, it’s simply about trial and error, practice, and once you know what you like, keep experimenting until you’re happy. It does take time. It is however a really important thing to develop if you want to up your photography game or take your Instagram to the next level, as having your own editing style will mean that your work is recognisable and consistent. When I was choosing a photographer to document our wedding, one of the really important factors for me was a solid consistency in both quality and editing style in their portfolio, as it meant that I could trust that the same quality would transfer to our own wedding photos; similarly if a brand wants to work with you as an influencer, it goes without saying that they’ll be more likely to reach out to you if you have a consistent editing style, as then they feel they know what they’ll be getting from you.

Something I struggled with when I was playing around with photo editing and finding a style I liked, was that I felt as though I liked lots of different styles, and my Instagram gallery seemed to change in its overall look quite regularly. I believed that I needed to select one filter, and one colour palette for my gallery, and stick with it. Now, there are some Instagram accounts that I love that have this nailed, but if you don’t want to commit to this, as I didn’t, that’s totally fine! If you look back through my Instagram gallery you’ll see that that colour palette changes through the seasons, and whilst I used to think that I was too fickle and it meant that I hadn’t yet settled on ‘my style’, I now embrace it.

One tip I would offer is to use a free grid planning app, if you don’t already, such as UNUM, Mosaico or Planoly. It will load your last 9 or 12 Instagram images, and you can add your next images into the mix to see how they will fit in prior to posting. I’m always a supporter of ‘post what makes you happy’, so if there’s a photo you’ve just taken that has e.g. a heap of green in it and sticks out like a sore thumb with the rest of your gallery, don’t despair! You could either desaturate the greens, or if that doesn’t help, just save the photo for later and start a little theme of green running through your feed, so that it fits in.

| Getting your photos onto your phone

I do all my photo editing on my iPhone. Some of my Instagram photos are still taken using my iPhone camera, but for the ones that I take using my DSLR the first step before editing is to get them onto my phone. I have two ways that I like to do this:

I download the images I want to edit directly from my camera to my phone using a wi-fi enabled memory card. This is the link to the one I use; you download a free app, connect to the card via wi-fi, et voila! Plus points – it’s quick, I can do it anywhere and don’t need to download images onto my computer first. Downsides – it’s best used to download a few select images as you have to do each photo manually, and the images are downloaded onto your phone which takes up memory space.
I upload photos from my camera to my computer; then in iPhotos I select all the images I wish to use, and add them to a shared folder on my iCloud. I can then access the shared folder on my phone and either select which ones I want to download, or upload them directly to VSCO from the shared folder. Plus points – it’s a better option if you have lots of images to choose from, and the images are still on the iCloud, therefore not taking up phone memory. Downsides – you have to connect your camera to your computer first in order to do this. I have a desktop Mac, so I can only do this at home.

VSCO

My favourite photo-editing app, VSCO is the first I turn to for every image I edit. If you’re new to VSCO, see here for a beginner’s guide by Instagram queen Sara Tasker. It’s a free app, but I’ve upgraded to VSCO X for an annual fee; having said that of all the hundreds of presets available, I still only use a select few! I’ll take you through a quick step-by-step on how I edit an image in VSCO.

First of all, I’ll use the editing tab to make basic corrections to the photo, starting off with cropping and straightening the image if needed, and then tweaking the exposure (usually slightly up, as I try to slightly underexpose when I shoot on my DSLR). I’ll then adjust the contrast and temperature, if theres an obvious need to.
Next, I add a filter. I almost exclusively use the Analog series: my favourites at the moment are A4 and A6, but up until about 6 months ago I tended to use A7, A8 and A9. I toggle the strength of the filter up and down, until I feel it is ‘just right’ – often less is more. I like to switch back and forth between the image I’m editing and the last 9 or 12 images in my Instagram gallery, to check that it looks like it will fit in seamlessly.
Finally I’ll go back to the editing tab and make some final changes, if needed. Sometimes I like to add clarity or sharpness by one stop, or slightly tweak the temperature again. There is a relatively new function called ‘HSL’, which stands for hue, saturation, and lightness. I’ll most commonly use this to desaturate green shades in a photo, if I feel like they are too intense.

Sometimes VSCO is the only editing tool I’ll use before posting a photo to Instagram, but there are a few other apps that I keep up my sleeve to troubleshoot various problems, and add effects.

PS Express

There are heaps of editing options in the Adobe Photoshop express app, but I generally used it for one function only, and that is the ‘Reduce Luminance Noise’ tab. If you’ve taken a photo in low light and the quality is poor, but you love the image, use this trick in combination with the ‘Sharpen’ tab to smooth things out. However, be careful not to go too heavy, or your photo will look like a painting! I don’t really use this function since I started shooting more on my DSLR, and I generally avoid any photography in low light.

PS Fix

I use the Photoshop Fix app if there is something in a photo that I want to erase, such as a plug socket! The ‘Spot Heal’ function will do this, but I find it a bit fiddly and sometimes the cover up isn’t very subtle, so I try and avoid getting ugly details in the shot in the first place!

Snapseed

This is a brilliant app, which I know a lot of people use as their primary photo editing app. There are heaps of different functions and effects, but I generally only use it for the ‘Brush’ tool. Using this, you can selectively ‘paint’ areas of a photo that you want to adjust exposure, temperature, saturation or ‘dodge & burn’ (lightening and darkening). So, for example if a photo has a well-exposed background, but the subject has been cast in shadow (or even just a part of the subject), you can paint the area to be lightened, and avoid having to overexpose the whole photo in order to ensure the subject is appropriately exposed. I’d urge you to have a play about with this, I love it.

A Color Story

This is another app that I know some people love to use exclusively, but I only use it to add effects. I’ve got the ‘Flare & Bokeh’ pack – call it cheating if you will, but I adore adding a little bit of magic to photos using these overlays! My preference is to make it look as natural as possible, so I head to this app only when I’ve got a photo that’s been taken in bright sunshine, so that it’s believable that a bit of sun flare has been captured. You can hold your fingers down over the flare overlay to change the orientation, and of course it looks most natural if you make it look like it’s coming from where the sun actually was in the photo. I’ll then always use the slider to reduce the effect to a subtle level.

| An editing recipe

I thought I’d add in one example of an edit that I’ve done; I’ve selected a photo that has been pretty heftily edited as it’s more interesting for the purposes of this post, but most of my photos generally have much more subtle tweaks than this one.

From the first image, which is taken straight off my camera, I used VSCO to create the second edit. After first cropping and straightening the image, I applied the following changes:

(Using the HSL function, I desaturated the greens). To take the image from the second to the third edit, I opened up the A Color Story app, and added a small amount of ‘flare 7’ in the Flare and Bokeh pack. The whole edit took me about 15 minutes.

| What’s next?

I’m very much still learning and evolving my photo editing myself, and my next project is to learn how to edit in Lightroom. I actually bought this for myself last year, but haven’t found the time to get to grips with it! My plan is to use YouTube tutorial videos to help me, and I’m really excited to get the hang of it and try using Lightroom presets on my photos.

So there we are! All of my photo editing ‘secrets’! I hope that this has been useful for you and that you’ve perhaps picked up a few tips. Would you like me to go into any more detail on how I edit my photos, maybe with a step by step example? Are there any photo editing apps that you love to use that I haven’t mentioned? Let me know!

Hannah x

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Family, Instagram, Motherhood

A little bit about myself…

June 6, 2017 34 Comments

Hello there!

I wanted to start my blog by telling you a little about me and how this space came about. Whether we’ve met, or chatted on Instagram about our respective motherhood dramas; if you’ve followed my story through those little squares over the past year or so, or if I’m new to you: thank you so much for reading and please do pop me a message to say hi, I’m new to this game and it’s a little daunting for me!

I’m Hannah; a 31 year old wife and mother.

I met Ben, a tall, handsome Devon boy 10 years ago, in the library at University, whilst we were supposed to be studying for our exams. After a few days of bumping into each other and hushed chatting in the reference aisles, he offered to walk me home at the end of the day. Ben walked me home every day that week, and one evening on the way home we ended up getting an impromptu drink in a pub garden. Neither of us knew that it was our first date at the time, but the rest is history. At our wedding (which, despite the cliché, was truly the best day of my life) our first dance was to ‘Walking My Baby Back Home’ by Nat King Cole.

I grew up in Cambridge, spent my University years in Leeds and then settled in York, doing the job that I had dreamed of since my childhood. Then, in October 2015 my life changed forever when our beautiful little boy, Oscar, arrived. Motherhood challenged me in every way possible, it made me question my priorities in life, what kind of person I am; what kind of person I wanted to be. The year away from a career that I had invested in for 10 years was hugely refreshing for me, and I was enthused to make the most of it: I re-learned how to knit, attempted to teach myself calligraphy, reignited my passion for photography and took an online film making course. Trying to do all of this whilst looking after a new baby was a struggle (especially one who seemingly didn’t sleep much and never wanted to be put down) and there were many days when I longed for five minutes to pee in peace, let alone half an hour relaxing with a knitting project.

I made contacts on a little app called Instagram; other mothers at very similar stages to me, going through the same troubles. These contacts developed into friendships, and this was the start for me of a bit of a love affair with Instagram. There were messages pinged back and forth whilst nursing in the dark in the early hours, comments of support and encouragement when I admitted how hard I’d found the early weeks, and private messages from mothers of younger babies, just to let me know that my raw admission of my rock bottom moments; the kind that there is a strong temptation to keep to oneself in order to appear as though everything is going swimmingly, had made them cry with relief as they had believed that everyone else was coping except for them. Instagram has not only been a little diary of my first two years as a mother and introduced me to some incredible women, but its wealth of inspiration has kept my enthusiasm for indulging my creative side going — and led to this blog.

Here you’ll find a bit of a mix that’s an honest reflection of me: my thoughts on motherhood, places we’ve been, some photography, creative outlets and day to day life finds that are too good not to share! I can’t thank you enough for stopping by to have a look, and I would absolutely love to hear from you – leave a comment or send me an email, for me it’s what this is all about!

You can find me on Instagram: @hannah.straughan or you can contact me via email: straughan.hannah@gmail.com

Hannah x