Clicking their way to fame

Bloomberg

Whether it’s cranes photographed at the harbour or a car framed against a sunset, Kay Palapies has become famous for his images reflected in puddles. The German has amassed more than 17,000 followers on Instagram, the video and photo-sharing platform that has become much more than just a place for narcissists to admire themselves.
As well as beauty and food bloggers, there are now also amateur photographers who
can give professionals a run for their money. He’s been active on Instagram for five years and in his every day life he’s an assistant tax consultant.
It’s after work and at the weekends that he goes out exploring the city of Hamburg where he lives with his smartphone, posting the results on his Instagram page, “nordisch_by_nature” with the hash-tag “#puddlegram.”
His favourite subjects are puddles. If it hasn’t rained recently, he often finds puddles of wind-blown spray at the city’s harbourside. Palapies developed a taste for artistic photography pretty quickly and now spends between one and two hours a day on Instagram.
“It’s like a kind of competition. You have certain themes and you always want to discover something new,” he says. Palapies is not afraid to travel to the uglier parts of his city, like a welfare-housing neighbourhood, Steilshoop, for a good photo.
“It’s not glamorous, but poor Steilshoop is part of Hamburg. Life, after all, is not always glamorous,” says the 40-year-old. He doesn’t make any money with his pictures, though he has been asked to feature products, requests he has up till now refused.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, also makes it possible to meet new people. On so-called InstaWalks or InstaMeets, photography enthusiasts can meet to exchange tips or go off together in search of new photos.
That’s how Palapies met 31-year-old Andres Lin, originally from Costa Rica. The pair first became aware of each other through their pictures and began exchanging comments on Instagram. Lin, an engineer,
has lived in Germany for 12 years, but he says Instagram allowed him to rediscover his
new home.
“I used to walk past some places every day without looking at them properly,” he says. “A couple of years ago I would never have even thought about just going inside apartment blocks to see what they look like from the inside,” he says.
In order to gain entry, he sometimes passes himself off as an architecture student interested in style. Residents might think a photographer is a spy. His favourite subject is staircases, but he’s also interested in symmetry, lines and peculiar perspectives.
More than 10,000 people now follow his Instagram account, “anlinsh,” and he says that Instagram has made him connections around the world. “When I was in Tokyo, I wrote to another Instagramer who had followed me for a long time. We met there and took pictures together. He showed me the most interesting parts of the city,” says Lin.
Instagram photos are now not only available online, but also in galleries. The website #WeloveHH, for example, organized an exhibition in Hamburg in June which included photos by Palapies and Lin. The pictures were sold and the proceeds went to charity.