Weekend Hashtag Project: #WHPfoundframes

Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes and hashtags chosen by Instagram’s Community Team. For a chance to be featured on the Instagram blog, follow @instagram and look for a post announcing the weekend’s project every Friday.

The goal this weekend is to make photos and videos with natural frames by using objects in your surroundings to create borders around your subjects.

Here’s how to get started:

• Think of different sized objects you can photograph through that will add an interesting shape or color to your pictures — like the holes of a fence or screen, a section of glass, or small straws or tubes you can point your lens on.
• Pay attention to layers in your composition. Create more depth by placing your frame in the foreground and keeping your subject in the background (as far back as it needs to be to fit nicely within your frame).
• Experiment with putting your natural frame both in and out of focus, to draw more attention to your subject or the frame itself.

PROJECT RULES: Please add the #WHPfoundframes hashtag only to photos and videos taken over this weekend and only submit your own visuals to the project. Any tagged photo or video taken over the weekend is eligible to be featured Monday.

#BeAwesomeToSomebody: Haircuts for the Homeless with @markbustos

November 13 is World Kindness Day. Explore the #WorldKindnessDay hashtag for more inspiration, and follow @markbustos on Instagram.

It takes a lot to stop a New Yorker en route to work — but watching celebrity hairstylist Mark Bustos (@markbustos) giving free cuts to the homeless might be worth the delay. “I started doing it on my days off, mostly to make people on their morning commute stop and look,” says the 31-year-old. “It only takes a split second to strike inspiration in someone’s head.”

Three years ago, Mark, a Filipino-American hairstylist from New Jersey, spent a day giving homeless children free haircuts during a trip to the Philippines. He was struck by the feeling of giving back — so he never stopped. To date, Mark has given over 300 charity haircuts to homeless citizens around the world. “I want people to realize that we’re all human, and that all of our lives are worth the same,” says Mark. “To be kind doesn’t take anything from us.”

Through his kindness campaign, #BeAwesomeToSomebody, he hopes to encourage others to pause for moments of compassion in their everyday lives. “I want to challenge people to break outside of their own life for a little bit,” says Mark. “I promise you’ll learn something about yourself.”

The Space Age Artwork Behind Logic’s New Album, ‘The Incredible True Story’

To see more of Logic’s photos and Sam’s artwork, check out @logic301 and @samspratt on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.

For the cover of his second record, The Incredible True Story, Logic (@logic301) had a specific image in mind. So he recruited Sam Spratt (@samspratt), who he collaborated with on his debut album, to help bring it to life.

“Sam will give me exactly what I want, but sometimes make it better,” says Logic. “I just rap. This dude is the artist.”

The 25-year-old emcee was looking for an image that a) encompassed the record’s futuristic plotline and b) was inspired by a still from Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou — a wide shot of the film’s main characters sitting front and center in a submarine. Logic had come across the photo by accident after opening a book dedicated to the director.

“I swear to God, I took a book and I opened it — and it opened to that picture,” he says. “I was like, wow, this is amazing.”

After relaying the information to Sam, the artist got to work, creating something that felt true to Logic and the album’s storyline, which takes place in 2065 after Earth has been deserted and what’s left of humanity lives in a space station.

“A lot of it was just creating a still from a movie because the album itself is a cinematic experience,” says Sam, “and the art needed to reflect that.”

The final piece, which takes place inside a ship, has 12 characters, with the rapper sitting in the middle, along with members of his team and characters in the record’s story positioned next to him. (If you look closely, you’ll be able to see Sam himself peeking out from behind the shadows.)

“He was able to create a ship where, not everybody but damn near everybody that made this album what it was, was part of the cover,” says Logic. “And yet, because of the color of the flight suit, it draws the eye straight to me, straight to the middle, straight to what the consumer is looking for.”

Now, the finished cover isn’t just on the album, it’s been slapped on the side of a giant tour bus that Logic has been traveling across the country in, surprising his fans and playing them a few cuts from the new record.

“I’ve noticed every single place I go, the music is a big part of it, but the biggest part is the message and the actual lyrics. It’s an era where everybody is talking about the beat and the melody. So to know that they love the beat and the melody, but they [also] love the message, that is what drives them to listen to it, is insane. That’s why I’m excited.”

—Instagram @music

All-American Stories with @bruce_weber

For more of Bruce’s photography, follow @bruce_weber on Instagram.

Legendary photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber (@bruce_weber) didn’t plan on devoting 15 years to “All-American,” an eclectic book series that celebrates the work of various artists — both famous and relatively unknown. The idea started as a collaboration between him and his partner, Nan Bush. “We really try to tell different stories about the people we bump into,” says Bruce. “Americans are well known for their stories, whether it be in a bar or whether it be down at the Dairy Queen.” For an artist who has made iconic fashion images since the 1980s, creating this annual journal has been a personal extension of the intimacy and devotion with which he approaches his day job. “It’s sort of our baby, you know? We get really possessive of it, all of us. And then we get frustrated with it. And then it just wants to get out of our arms and get on with college and grad school, wants to get on with its life,” says Bruce. And then it begins all over again. “We always start talking about the next issue the day that we finish.”

From Nepal to Diwali, Finding Beauty in the Light with @prashanthvishwanathan

To see more photos from Diwali, explore the #Diwali hastag. For more photos from Prashanth, follow @prashanthvishwanathan on Instagram.

In April, he was a documentarian, capturing the aftermath of Nepal’s earthquake, uploading images to the @nepalphotoproject, which ultimately brought aid to some of the people he photographed. In September, he was a wanderer in New York where the concrete jungle inspired him.

But this week, Prashanth Vishwanathan (@prashanthvishwanathan) is a photojournalist covering #Diwali, one of the biggest festivals in and around his native India, the ancient Hindu festival of lights.

“Diwali today is what Christmas is for the Western world,” he says. “It’s a long holiday, a license to light lamps, buy new dresses, celebrate with family and friends and, of course, burst crackers.“

Derived from a Sanskrit word which loosely translates into “light” and “row,” Diwali’s hundreds of millions of participants will adorn households, windows, temples and buildings with rows of shiny lamps.

But Prashanth feels it is important to mind Mother Nature in the act of celebration. “Festivals like Diwali, which were founded on sound principles of love and harmony, today are reduced to a noise and air polluting extravaganza,” he says. “For me, a rethinking of our impact on nature and redefinition of these old customs to modern-day living, while keeping the essence of its significance, is important.”

‘Here’s What I’ve Seen’: The Photos of My Morning Jacket’s Jim James

To see more of Jim’s photography, check out @removador on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.

Jim James (@removador) is tired of talking. “I feel like in today’s world, everybody wants to talk and nobody wants to listen. So I’m trying to be a better listener,” he says. His preferred method of communication is (no surprises here) music. But if he had to pick a close second, the My Morning Jacket frontman would go with photography.

“You know, I’m lucky enough to get to travel the world and see all these really cool things,” he says. “And I feel like this is the perfect way for me to be able to communicate and say, ‘Here’s what I’ve seen,’ or ‘Here’s what I’m feeling,’ without any words.”

Right now, he’s feeling a Super Mario Bros.-themed totem pole, which is staring back at him on the waterfront in Seattle. But that pole could just as easily be an old faded record with a ripped sleeve, or the inside of a piano, or a dusty room with light shining through the curtains.

Jim is the first to point out that he isn’t trying to make a career of taking pictures (“For me, it’s always been more of a fleeting pleasure. I just see something and take a picture of it, and it’s just a fun way to be artistic”). But when you shoot photos over a long period of time, patterns start to develop and inform other creative avenues. That’s how he came up with the cover of his band’s latest record, The Waterfall.

It all came together during a trip to Portland, Oregon, when My Morning Jacket was mixing their album. Not only did Jim visit Multnomah Falls while he was there, he had also written a song for the record called “In Its Infancy (The Waterfall).” The next logical move was to just use a waterfall photo as the cover art — which was easy since the singer had already built up his own collection.

“I don’t even know why, but I just kind of got obsessed with old black-and-white pictures of waterfalls,” he says.

Sifting through used pictures, you begin to wonder where they originated and why no one claimed them. Jim had been thinking about this a lot recently, after the death of his great aunt.

“If somebody passes away, and they were alone or didn’t have any family or anything, all those photos just eventually go to the Goodwill or go in the trash or some antique collector,” says Jim. “But it’s kind of cool because it’s like, there’s another life for all those things, and people like me kind of walk through an antique mall and get into it, you know?”

Turns out taking photos isn’t the only way to communicate without talking — so is finding them.

—Instagram @music

Finding Adventure After Service with Veteran @dcwriley

For more of Daniel’s adventures, follow @dcwriley on Instagram.

Daniel Riley (@dcwriley) doesn’t feel disabled — at least not when he’s running a marathon, surfing, skydiving, skiing or riding a mountain bike. But Daniel is a double amputee; he lost both legs as a 25-year-old Marine, in a bomb blast in Afghanistan. He had served one tour in Iraq when he volunteered to go to Helmand province to join one of the infantry units that had lost troops as combat intensified.

“The guys in my squad and platoon were professionals,” Daniel says. “I served with some of the hardest and toughest men on the planet. And on the morning of December 16, 2010, that professionalism saved my life.”

In the wake of more than 20 surgeries, sports — and the freedom of being outdoors and active — became a critical part of Daniel’s recovery. “Waking up in a hospital bed and looking down at bandaged bloody stumps, it was easy to say my life was over. However, trying — even when failing miserably — all these sports has led me to do more than I had ever done with legs.”

Now a 30-year-old college student in Colorado, Daniel reflects on coming home from war. “My generation of veterans struggles with being heard. I deployed to combat twice, but that’s not unique. I have many friends who served two, three — and even seven deployments. I sustained life-altering wounds, but again I’m not unique and others have sustained worse. None of this was done for fame and glory, and we would do it all over again. All we ask is that you don’t forget about us.”

Shoegazing with Music Photographer Breno Galtier

To see more of Breno’s work, check out @brenogaltier on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.

Lollapalooza Brasil, 2015: St. Vincent is brandishing her fist, ruling the stage and outshining the magnesium glare of her throne. It’s one of many striking pop images from Brazilian music photographer Breno Galtier (@brenogaltier), who revels in iconic poses, unsung angles and the ground beneath our feet.

“Lollapalooza is insane!” says Breno. “Usually, you can only photograph the first three songs, so it’s always a little crazy. You work under pressure. St. Vincent was one of the coolest concerts to shoot — she has an amazing stage presence. When I saw her doing that move, with that perfect light, I hurried to catch that angle.”

Breno has been shooting music since 2012, with photos that feel like they’re literally leaping out at you. “I love to [photograph] musicians that move, jump and show excitement,” he says of his dynamic aesthetic. “But I love it even more when the lighting is great, because it makes it easier for me and lets me explore the venue without limitations.”

How much does a band’s style, sound or personality inform Breno’s photos? “A lot, but I don’t let the inspiration take over the picture,” he says. “When I photograph a concert, apart from the band’s musical genre, I put in my own style. It’s how I leave my ‘brand’ on my work. I like to shoot musicians [from] a different point of view, notice the non-obvious things and angles, exploring the band, but in a way that hasn’t been done before.”

For all of his aesthetic kinships — he cites fellow music photographers César Ovalle, Matt Vogel and Andy Barron as influences — Breno’s visual identity is singular. “I try to avoid clichés,” he says. “I don’t like to take obvious pictures. I like to play with all the resources that I have — from gear to the possibilities that the situation can provide me.” He also shifts our point of view: he often frames the rock star not as a headshot, nor an instrument, but as a pair of feet.

“When you’re at a concert, you hardly ever look to the musicians’ feet. But I love to pay attention to them!” he says, laughing. “I like to observe all the details that happen onstage and one of the coolest things is the moves that they do with their feet: stepping on pedals, dancing or just expressing themselves in a different way.”

— Nicola Meighan for Instagram @music

Weekend Hashtag Project: #WHPfuturistic

Weekend Hashtag Project is a series featuring designated themes and hashtags chosen by Instagram’s Community Team. For a chance to be featured on the Instagram blog, follow @instagram and look for a post announcing the weekend’s project every Friday.

This weekend’s prompt was #WHPfuturistic, which asked participants to make pictures inspired by what they imagine fashion, architecture and everyday life will look like in the future. Every Monday we feature some of our favorite submissions from the project, but be sure to check out the rest here.

Traditional Russian Bread Making with @zabavnikov_ivan

To see more of Ivan’s photos, follow @zabavnikov_ivan on Instagram.

(This interview was conducted in Russian.)

There is nothing beige or bland about Ivan Zabavnikov’s (@zabavnikov_ivan) photographs of bread. There is texture, props — including a cat — and even vibrant color. “I want to tell people about the things that I like, and I love bread,” says Ivan, who is a baker for a restaurant in St. Petersburg, Russia, and founder of the Ivan Zabavnikov Bread Workshop. When he travels, Ivan seeks out other bread makers and captures their recipes and stories in pictures. On a trip to Sri Lanka last year with his wife, the search wasn’t easy: “We figured out that there were only stoves in the local restaurants and cafeterias and there were no ovens. I was so happy when we found a cafeteria owned by a Russian couple and I saw the oven!” Ivan says. “One day, on a beautiful morning, the bread was ready. This is how I reached my goal and met wonderful people. The world is full of kind and understanding people!”