The photo sharing community of the world has been revolutionized by the arrival of Instagram. This is an old story now. But what Instagram has done is to bring the world of visuals into your palm and that is as magical as it gets. This is not new too. But what never becomes stale is the unending flow of incredible images we get to savour.
“We, at The Uncommon Box are going to travel the cities and highlight the best of the communities there, who are curating quality content beyond the pouting selfie culture one associates Instagram with.”
Why are we going on this exhaustive tour?
Well, The Uncommon Box is on a quest – to discover how we perceive the spaces we occupy as home and what is the way we show it to the world? That is the main quest of this feature.
Our first stop in this tour is Kolkata and we have turned our focus on five such Instaphoto communities, handpicked by our team.
# Stories of Kolkata @stories.of.kolkata
Up first is Stories of Kolkata, brainchild of its founder-admin Sujay Kumar Das better known as @chocolate_mpire to his Instagram followers. This handle specializes in unconventional and breath-taking shots of not only Calcutta but also of Bengal.
Their USP lies in featuring the work of new photographers along with established ones. They have steadily grown in numbers of followers and that is a testament to the commendable curation of photographs on the handle.
# Streets of Calcutta @streetsofcalcutta
The next Instagram handle on our list is Streets of Calcutta.
Run by veteran photographer Soumya Shankar Ghosal, (@ssghosal), with team members, Indrajit Lahiri, Nilanjan Pathak and Ayanava Sil, it has countless members across different social media channels. They have worked with several brands across the spectrum like Instagram, IBM, Nikon, Idea, and Amazon among others. They organise events for the benefit of the photography enthusiasts of the city.
# Calcutta Calling @cal_calling
Next stop – Calcutta Calling
Born on 3rd June 2016, this soon-to-be-one-year-old community was started as an initiative of founder Arkavo Sarkar (@_arkavo) aided ably by Swagnik Bhattacharya, Shaayer Mukherjee and Souradeep Mallick. The young community is in the process of building its follower count and focuses on at least one community photo walk per month. The Community seeks to support the love the photographers have, for the varied frames the city offers.
# Calcutta Instagrammers @ig_calcutta
The blitzkrieginsta- community of Calcutta- Calcutta Instagrammers, that is how one can describe them.
The most media savvy community of them all, was founded in September 2015, by Sammya brata Mullick, also known as @deckle_edge to his Instagram followers. He has a young team of admins helping him in this task – namely, Anamitra Ghosh, Ananya Das, Ayush Dutta Roy, Moumita Biswas and Suprotim Nandi.
Their USP has been their competency in establishing their handle as a ‘brand’ in the photosharing community in the city. Curation on the handle has expanded to photographs beyond the city and of the state of Bengal as well.
# Amar Kolkata @amarkolkata
The Instagram community of Amar Kolkata began very differently – it started as a WordPress account of Mohammad Tanzil, (Instagram handle @fromlenstoeye), where one could post stories about the city. Then he decided to create an Instagram handle and Amar Kolkata was born. There are two more people Md Zain and Nashra Fatima who are on the team. Somnath Dhar is also acknowledged as a mentor to this group of young enthusiasts. Curation on this group has an element of freshness in it, chosen by what its young core team has an eye for.
Instagram is definitely more than an app- it is a way of life.
“These communities with their follower base seek to highlight different aspects of the city they thrive in. That is where The Uncommon Box wishes to turn the spotlight on.The frames being captured, the visuals being curated indicate the zeal of these communities to keep photo enthusiasts engaged. This is the spirit The Uncommon Box seeks in others and commends heartily.”
So do you have a similar community in your city? Are you part of such a community? We would love to know more about you and your journey. Write into us at theuncommonbox@gmail.com or use the submission portal on our website for posting us your content.
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