Who do you admire on Instagram? Whose feed do you aspire to recreate, whose captions make you laugh, whose meals always look scrumptious? These are your Instagram friends. These friends are on either sides of the screen, liking, commenting, tagging, and messaging all day long.
Have you ever met any of these Instagram friends in real life? Have you ever messaged someone and asked to get coffee/food/flowers/etc? One of my favorite parts about Instagram is finding those people that you connect with on the Instagram aesthetic level, but also on the personal level.
Recently, I met Natalie (@datsjustwong) from Instagram in real life, and we’ve followed each other for a while. I love her vivacity and intention, and we decided to start our photo shoot adventure at Methodical Coffee.
1. Requirements for any Instagram meet up: a phone (or a camera, if you prefer), a place, and a person. It’s pretty simple. Props add an additional flair, if you like that too. The photo below is one of my favorites because it reminds me of a lifestyle shoot for a magazine!
2. Phones: iPhone 5SE and iPhone 7. Phone cameras are great these days for capturing images on the go. We took a variety of iPhone photos, including this one featuring my Instagram, @strikesofluck.
3. Camera: Nikon D3100 with an 18-300mm lens. For this photo below, we put the camera on self-timer, I ran to take the photo, then I ran to join the photo. Self-timers add some cool angles to the shots, especially when you don’t have a third person to take one for you.
4. Place(s): Methodical Coffee, Due South Coffee, Taylors Mill. The “Enjoy” on Methodical’s floor is a great Instagram spot, especially if you use the hashtag #enjoymethodical. I love the second photo because the coffee bags are lined up just so. The third photo was taken from my favorite bench table inside Due South, and Taylors Mill is a great place to explore.
5. Props: flowers, coffee, camera scarf, doughnuts. From Natalie’s flowers to our coffee cups to my camera scarf to this cinnamon sugar Circa Doughnut, it’s always fun to add props and experiment. We took this scarf photo multiple times until we got one that we wanted.
6. Person: Natalie. What a kind and thoughtful person to spend the day with and to learn more about in real life.
Seriously, if you have an Instagram friend that you’d like to turn into a real life friend, I suggest you go for it! I’ve met some of my closest and coolest friends through this aesthetically fun app, and it’s great to have photo friends for the spontaneous and the planned. Happy adventuring!
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