Welcome back, y’all! I absolutely love taking pictures–just ask any of my close friends. I make just about every get together a photo op.
Sometimes just a plain white wall or brick wall can get a bit boring though. I challenge myself to take pictures at interesting walls, places with loads of greenery and other backgrounds.
It’s hard trying to find these backgrounds, especially when you’re in a suburban or rural town. Enter today’s blog post! Whether you’ve wondered how I find my backgrounds for my Instagram, or need help finding some yourself, this post is for you.
1. Instagram is your best friend
This is stop number one for me to find any great backgrounds. There’s so many ways to find backgrounds from just this one app.
a) Check with your followers
Most people these days add the location of wherever they took their picture, which can make it extremely easy for you to find the same background. So while scrolling through your feed, or your following list, make notes of pictures with really awesome backgrounds that you like.
Tap on the location and save it on Apple Maps or Google Maps by tapping on the map and the share button at the top right of the screen. Note, this might differ on an Android phone.
b. Check with your non-followers
Of course, you can’t rely on just the people you follow. Search underneath hashtags particular to your city to find other accounts to look at and other locations.
For example, a few hashtags I tend to look under pretty frequently are #atlblogger, #atlantageorgia and #atlantablogger. When I’m back at school, I switch the Atlanta out for Savannah, since that’s the closest biggest city to me.
c. When all else fails, DM
Sometimes, you’ll see a super awesome background, but all that’s tagged is the city, not the exact location. If you really want to know where the background is, just DM whomever posted the picture! More often than not, they’ll tell you where they were.
2. Google Maps is also your best friend
The most wonderful thing about Google Maps is that people can upload their own pictures to it. Typically they’re not very “Instagrammy” or “Influencery” but there’s often shots of the interior and exterior of a place.
Using StreetView on Google Maps, you can look around the area and see if it is a place you want to go to or not. Also, because I know the screenshots folder on your phone can get a bit cluttered, Google Maps allows you to make lists and add locations to it.
I have one titled “Photo Spots” and check off the location or coordinates once I take a picture there.
3. Blog posts from other bloggers and websites are your friends as well
Once you’ve exhausted all your options or gotten tired of looking through Instagram and Google Maps, a good ol’ Google Search will serve you well. There’s plenty of websites that list the best photo op places for your city. I would search “photo spots (your city)” or “best photo locations in (your city)”.
Many websites will list tourist locations as photo locations, but some will have lesser known places as well. With thousands of these guides online, you’re sure to find a great place.
4. Riding around your city is definitely your friend
As nice as it would be to just rely on other people for ideas, sometimes you have to get out there on your own. What I mean is, bike, scoot, or hop in your car and drive around and location scout. If your city is too big to aimlessly ride around in, pick a suburb or a landmark and drive only five to ten minutes away from that landmark.
A lot of my backgrounds I’ve found on my way to another location. I’ll mark down where it is and try to return to there later. Other times, I’ve purposely drove around until I saw a background that I liked and used that.
No matter the size of your city, there is always good places to take pictures. Bonus points if you can take your pictures uninterrupted, but that’s a blog post for another day.
Riding around was how I found a place to take pictures for my blue blazer post!
I use at least one, if not more than one of these things to find locations all the time! Hopefully you can do the same thing to take your IG background game to another level.
Are there any other tips or things you do to find backgrounds to take pictures in front of? Let me know in the comments below!
Until next time,
