Instagram @music’s Monthly Hashtag Project: #MHPmusicmood

Monthly 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 @music on Instagram.

This month’s prompt was #MHPmusicmood, which asked participants to make creative images and videos that capture the mood of a particular song or genre, inspired by guest curator Caleb Zahm (@calebzahm). We selected some of our favorite submissions from the project, but be sure to check out the rest here.

Chasing a World Cup Dream with @sydneyleroux

To see more behind-the-scenes photos from Sydney Leroux, follow @sydneyleroux on Instagram. To keep up with the World Cup action, visit the hashtags #WWC and #USWNT.

She might be one of the world’s top soccer players, but off the field and on Instagram, Sydney Leroux (@sydneyleroux) likes to keep it light. “I want people to know that I like to have fun,” she says. “And no matter what your life looks like from the outside, pictures are a way to let people in and let people see that you are very normal. Except sometimes maybe I’m not so normal, but that’s part of the fun.”

Sixteen years ago, when she was just a little girl, Sydney watched on television as the US team won the 1999 Women’s World Cup. Now she and her teammates on the US Women’s national soccer team are three victories away from another title. “Now that you are here, you look back and say that everything was worth it,” says Sydney.

The US team faces China in one of today’s quarterfinal matchups. The winner will advance to the semifinals to play against either France or Germany next week. The final will be held July 5.

The Absurdity of Being Normal with @hombre_normal

For more of Marc’s photos with The Normal Man, follow @hombre_normal on Instagram.

Does anyone want to be normal? Marc Torrell (@hombre_normal) does. For him, being normal is extraordinary. He started photographing his action figure “The Normal Man” in everyday situations because he wanted to vindicate normality. “What he does is never incredible — it could happen to anyone,” says Marc, a creative director in Barcelona whose humorous photo captions reflect the absurdity of being normal. “It’s the adventure of living your day by day.”

Marc believes the captions are just as important as the photos. Whether Normal Man “exasperates with the absurd queue at the Postal Service” or “is texting you” while sitting on the toilet, the result is perfectly normal — and very funny. He creates a story for each photo and some of Marc’s friends and family participate, too. The Normal Man has a girlfriend, a best friend who always picks on him and a mother. “The conversation around the photo allows you to go deeper into the story. I love responding to the comments and creating situations.”

Marc plans to grow old with The Normal Man. “This project, I believe I’ll be working on it till my last day,” he says. “I’d love to see The Normal Man get married in a normal wedding, have normal kids with normal problems, for his hair to turn gray.”

The Colorful Paintings of Artist and Musician @sebastianblanck

To see more of Sebastian’s artwork, check out @sebastianblanck on Instagram. For more music stories, check out @music.

He does it in the affectionate paintings of his New York day-to-day: his children sleeping, his wife in the shower, their friends, their surroundings, life changing around them – as variously rendered in watercolor and stretched Japanese paper, with an audacious approach to pink and blue.

And he does it in his picturesque music: the harmonic chorales, the psychedelic folk psalms, the unplugged hymns of love and loss, as showcased on his first solo album, Alibi Coast.

This is the work of Sebastian Blanck (@sebastianblanck) – artist, musician and former member of Brooklyn electronic experimentalists Black Dice. As with much of Sebastian’s intimate, interconnected art, his lyrics and music conjure a series of paintings in which he depicts his wife, the artist Isca Greenfield-Sanders (“Don’t drown in modesty, I’ve seen through your nightgown,” he sings on the acid-folk lullaby “At Arm’s Length”), as well as other intimate moments around him.

“To me, what I want, more than anything, is for people to feel that they can enter into the images, or enter into the song, and feel like it’s a story that’s being shared, as opposed to being presented,” he says.

Does being a visual artist and a musician allow him to explore or express different emotions? “It does,” says Sebastian, who is currently working on a follow-up to Alibi Coast. “I think the paintings are a little more cheerful, while it’s easier to deal with darker emotions in music. I don’t know why that is, but I’m happy that I have two different modes of expression that allow me to explore different parts of myself, and hopefully connect with different people.”

There is something hugely personal yet universally resonant about Sebastian’s variegated art – from his accessible, big-hearted melodies, to the open faces of his portraits (which are more akin to film stills than posed images), to his uncannily familiar landscapes. He works in New York, but many of his scenes feel like mirror images of the Scottish Highlands, albeit embellished in dayglow shades.

“I wanted to keep the landscapes simplistic, but hopefully evocative of a real place,” says Sebastian. “They’re made with stretching paper, and the idea is that the material leads me or guides me – I try to leave it minimalist, to leave it up to chance. So the strips of mountains, the peaks, the curves – they’re all just where the paper tore.”

Sebastian adds that with his landscapes, he’s looking to do something in opposition to capturing specific facial expressions and emotions.

“I look at the landscapes and think of the Hudson River … or the place my wife and I have upstate,” he says. “It’s that simple construction of depth, where bands of color become land, water, hills, sky – and there can definitely be different interpretations of that. And they’re fun. It’s a nice relief, in a way, from trying to capture someone’s gesture.”

Sebastian’s use of color is particularly striking in his landscapes, which are rendered in pink and blue flushes. “Color is such an important part of painting, and you can do so much with the work,” he says. “You can basically have zero drawing, zero mark-making, and just have it all about that color. When I started doing landscapes, the first stages were just the color of the beautiful Japanese paper I was using, and it was really minimal – I wasn’t adding anything, I was just taking that material and setting up a landscape using a very simple language,” he recalls.

“But then I was like, ‘Well, what’s the next thing I could do?’ So I took the pink paper and painted it more pink, and I took the blue paper and painted it more blue. It’s like that stupid Spinal Tap thing, you know, ‘More black!’” he says with a laugh.

He wanted to turn the pink up to eleven? “Yeah, exactly!” And so he does.

– Nicola Meighan for Instagram @music

The Art of Less Is More with @lucidlines

To see more of Caitlin’s tattoo art, follow @lucidlines on Instagram.

“The science behind the process and the idea of being able to carry art around with you and transform your appearance has always intrigued me,” says 25-year-old tattoo artist Caitlin Thomas (@lucidlines). After studying graphic design, Caitlin went on to pursue illustration and the visual arts before taking an apprenticeship at a tattoo studio in Adelaide, South Australia.

“People may be surprised to learn that I only have a couple of tattoos,” she says. “Many people have the belief that all tattoo artists need to be covered, but I am trying to show that isn’t necessary anymore and that it is more about the art.”

Outside of her life as a tattoo artist, Caitlin is equally passionate about music, playing the drums in bands and writing music with friends. “Leading a double life has proven to be a tiring venture with a newfound respect for days off,” she muses. When applying for jobs, Caitlin showcased the drums she worked on with a wood-burning tool as an example of her steady line work.

Caitlin describes her style as “minimalism” and her technique is inspired by 18th and 19th century line engravings — the idea of grasping a concept or image using its basic form. “I am hoping to help create a new movement of tattooing that promotes the idea that less is more,” she says. “I do enjoy and respect the extremely detailed and colorful style of tattooing, but I just can’t deny the satisfaction of successfully portraying an image based only on line work, a single shade of ink and making use of the natural skin color that people bring in themselves.”

Now and Then: Going Behind the Scenes at @glastoofficial

To see more photos from this year’s Glastonbury Festival, explore the #glastonbury hashtag on Instagram. For more music stories, check out @music.

Let’s talk numbers: More than 100,000 music fans, 15,000 workers, 5,000 portable bathrooms and 10,000 hand-painted trash bins, dispersed throughout the grounds. It’s a far shot from what the Glastonbury Festival (@glastoofficial), which takes place every June in southwest England, was when it first started in 1970. The oft-told tale from that inaugural year: tickets cost one British pound and admission included free milk from its home on Worthy Farm. Things are a bit different now – there are more people, more bands (this year’s headliners include Kanye West and Florence and the Machine), more money and new exhibits. But the spirit has stayed the same.

“It’s never rested on its laurels,” says Emily Eavis, co-organizer of the festival – and the one standing in the middle of those bins up top. “Every year we dramatically add lots of things and take some things away and move it on and keep it completely fresh.”

–Instagram @music

Breakdowns on a Long Road Across America with @stacykranitz

To see more of Stacy’s photographs from the road, follow @stacykranitz on Instagram.

Stacy Kranitz (@stacykranitz) is an American photographer who was born in Kentucky, has a home in Los Angeles, and mostly lives on the road. She immerses herself in the lives of people that she forms enduring relationships with, blurring the lines between the professional and the personal, and the public and the private aspects of her own life. She explains her vision and her approach:

“At a very early age I was interested in documenting things. I kept elaborate journals with notes, photographs and documents glued inside. As I got older I wanted to make documentary films but it was a financial challenge and it seemed to take years to complete a project. I felt like I had to hide my work away from everyone until its completion and I did not like that. I started making photographs because they could be shared as individual images immediately and as part of a larger more involved project later. The photograph is more flexible in this way.

I’ve been living out of my car for years to make my work. I built a bed in the back. I will spend three or four months working on a project. I don’t sleep in my car all the time. I camp out and am often invited to stay in people’s homes. But the car functions as a safe and dependable space where I can stash equipment, food and clothing. I like to travel in the summer because the light is available until late in the evening. It is too hot to sit inside my car so I am forced to be outside engaging with strangers all the time and everyday.

I like to stay out as long as I can. I begin to slowly deteriorate the longer I am gone. Both the car and myself become physically more haggard as the weeks wear on. It sounds bad but this is the thing I want. I believe that I am not making really good work unless I am pushing myself into a very uncomfortable place. I don’t think I have gotten somewhere with the work unless I have pushed myself close to the brink of my own sanity. Breakdowns happen and then I pick up the pieces and continue on.

Right now I am working on a project about central Appalachia. This is the fifth year I have been working on it. I came to the region because I thought that if I went out and photographed each day, wandering amongst strangers and a strange land, I would be able to escape a darkness inside of myself. I wanted a personal connection to something. So I invented one through my experiences in a place I had not been before. I wanted to make something unknown familiar.

I make this work in an effort to question the world and myself. I make this work to push behind our desire to categorize people and their lives in terms of what is right and what is wrong. I make this work in an effort to embrace the murkiness in-between our notion of right and wrong. It is a process of constantly undoing everything I think I know. Building up an idea of a place and then tearing it apart.” –@stacykranitz

Telling Urban Stories from Venezuela with @revistanow

To discover more urban stories from Venezuela, follow @revistanow on Instagram.

(This interview was conducted in Spanish).

“What matters to me, what inspires me, is the people. That’s why I do so many portraits. I try to tell the story that no one sees, that no one knows and that no one wants to see,” says Ernesto Pérez (@revistanow), who works as editor at a digital magazine in Maracaibo, Venezuela.

Ernesto often takes pictures of public transport buses, which are colorful but overwhelming. “I live in a city where you get 112 degrees Fahrenheit [44 Celsius] at noon, so using public transport is a tough experience. I’m interested primarily in those feelings, in the expression of those on that transport system.”

“I take pictures of buses without air conditioning, where everyone is standing up. There’s an infernal heat. There are also other cars known as carros por puesto [public transport cars that fit up to 5 passengers], which are vehicles from the 50s that smell like gasoline,” Ernesto says.

Ernesto says his images represent a unique kind of beauty. “I’ve always thought that I’m disturbing people’s tranquility on their Instagram feed,” he says, adding, “I try to capture what it means to be in a city, I try to focus on people’s feelings. I like to get to know people on the streets. My city, my country is passing through a difficult moment and I am not trying to portray it in a bad light. I am trying to find beauty in places where it is difficult to find it.”

Act Natural: The Portraits of Music Photographer @tomspray

To see more of Tom Spray’s music photography, check out @tomspray on Instagram. For more music stories, check out @music.

There’s this one shot of Interpol. The image is monochrome, head-on, austere and if its striking shadow dance evokes the music of the band, then so too does it reflect the vision of the man behind the camera.

England-raised, Denmark-based music photographer Tom Spray (@tomspray) has photographed everyone from Pussy Riot to the Rolling Stones. Despite the breadth of his work, his portfolio has recurring themes, like spontaneity, nature and – as with Interpol – intimacy.

“I like to capture a natural expression on people,” says Tom, who has just returned from an assignment for the music website Pitchfork that saw him tasked with snapping “portrait, candid and atmospheric shots” at Spain’s Primavera festival. That’s where he ensnared Interpol (among others) – but not before he captured Tyler, The Creator, looking all in-your-face, up close and pensive.

Did Tom have time to bond with Tyler before he raised the lens? “God no,” he says with a laugh. “Tyler arrived about 30 minutes before his set, and I think he was trying to recreate some sort of Compton hanging-out-on-the-front-porch vibe with his crew. So I just approached him and asked if I could take a few frames. It was against this really ugly concrete backdrop and there was absolutely zero light. I did it all within about 30 seconds, but I hope I still captured who Tyler, The Creator is – albeit within a very short frame.”

Tom’s portraits are deceptively casual. He prefers to snap mid-conversation, rather than setting up elaborate poses. (Which is just as well, as he’s rarely granted the chance for the latter on festival shoots.) In doing so, he effectively catches people unaware, and they reveal something in return.

“I’ve been doing quite a lot of tight framing and low depth of field on individuals recently,” he says. “That gives you this extremely intimate vibe. It’s almost like me with my lens pressed up against your face, which is extremely intrusive, but at the same time you capture a sort of vulnerability about a person when you break down a barrier like that.”

Perhaps that’s what’s so remarkable about the Interpol shot: they appear closer, their features larger. They seem less untouchable.

“Again, the Interpol shot was very rushed,” recalls Tom. “Daniel [Kessler] the guitarist was very ill, and there was this whole media circus around, trying to get them to say a few words on camera. It was all very chaotic.” None of this is evident in the photograph. Its atmosphere appears to be one of absolute calm. “That’s the beauty of photography,” he nods.

Interpol has long drawn comparisons with Joy Division, whose bleak aesthetic was infamously captured in monochrome by Anton Corbijn. Is he a reference point of sorts for Tom? “Yeah, Anton Corbijn’s someone I have a lot of respect for,” he says. “And Annie Leibovitz, especially her ‘70s and ‘80s stuff.”

Tom’s style and approach is entirely his own, but there are shades of Leibovitz’s ‘80s-era flair for bold color in his work – particularly a bright and surprisingly floral portrait of Swedish pop livewire Robyn.

“I took that at Pitchfork Festival in Paris in 2012,” recalls Tom. “I got to build my own studio on-site, so it was taken under controlled lighting. Robyn was extremely easy to work with – you don’t really have to direct her – she’s quite playful and goes with the flow. We gave her a bouquet of flowers …” She wields them like a weapon.

Tom’s photos often raise a smile – Robyn’s floral arsenal; Black Lips’ leery, wine-wielding all-nighter – but few are more heartening than his portrait of blues and funk troubadour Charles Bradley, his smiling eyes brimming with tales untold. “That’s one of my favorite shots from last year,” Tom offers. “It was at Primavera again, but he came up to my hotel room, and we just hung out for half an hour. We chatted much more than I took photos.”

Tom’s love for seizing spontaneous moments works well in the live arena too – from a picture of Syrian street-folk star Omar Souleyman with the jumping masses reflected in his mirror sunglasses, to a mid-mosh pit shot during the Roskilde Festival set of black metal band Hexis.

“It’s pretty much all down to light and luck,” says Tom with a laugh. What he does not say is that it takes a patient hand to capture a person’s essence; that it takes a brave man to square up to Tyler, The Creator; that it takes a keen eye to capture the magic of music. But seeing is believing.

– Nicola Meighan for Instagram @music