‘Insta’ntly they met

What happens when a group of photographers meet up? Photos, photos and more photos. That’s exactly what happened at the Instagram WWIM-12 hyd (World Wide Instameet 12).

Close to 30 instagrammers, professional and amateur photographers, gathered at the Qutub Shahi Tombs on Saturday for the meet. “A few of us met few days ago and we put up a photo, after that the team from Instagram sent me a message about the worldwide meet and so we thought why not just go ahead with it,” says Sandhya Nagaraj, one of the organisers.

“The idea is to encourage photography in the city... Not just professional photographers, but even someone who has a good eye,” says Meghna Chinaiah, another organiser.

“As part of the get-together instagrammers were asked to click portraits of people they met and write about them. Since most of us were meeting for the first time, it was also a good way to get to know each other,” adds Meghna.

Sandhya says, “The instagrammers will post photos from the meet-up using two hash tags #todayimet and #whoifollow. #todayimet is for the people they photographed,  #whoifollow is for their subject’s favourite instagram accounts.” Apart from clicking photos, members at the event were also given badges and stickers of Instagram. “We received a package of goodies from Instagram to give away to the participants of the meet,” explains Sandhya.

The other surprise of the day was a magazine, Melange, comprising photos collected by professional and personal photographers. “We want to encourage community photography and Melange is part of our attempt to do so,” says Meghna who got the magazine together.