An Instagram page started by two Pune creators barely a month ago has an unusual mismatch in its numbers. It has around 800 followers and just about 20 posts. Yet some of its Reels are already hitting 15K to 25K views.
The videos are simple where the two creators walk around Pune after work, approach strangers and offer to take an instant Polaroid photograph of them. The customer gets a physical photograph and parts/clippings of the interaction end up on Instagram. They started the project on August 24 after noticing that street Polaroid photography, a format they had seen elsewhere, was not something they were coming across in Pune.
“We were exploring different places and realised street Polaroids weren’t really there in Pune,” the duo told TCI. Both have corporate jobs, so the shoots usually happen after office hours.
“We both are corporate girlies, so we plan different streets across Pune and go after work,” they said.
That fairly ordinary schedule has turned into the premise of the page: two people finishing work, heading into the city with an instant camera and finding out who is willing to stop for a photograph.
The photographs are paid for. But unlike a conventional street photography business, much of the discovery is happening through the videos being made around those transactions. The creators already had experience making content, which they believe has helped.
“We are both influencers and content creators, so we create content while doing the Polaroids and have stayed consistent with it,” they said.
One of their more memorable encounters came when they approached two friends and noticed that one of them was crying. They initially thought they had picked the wrong moment.
Instead, her friend suggested they take a Polaroid to cheer her up. “She was very happy after that,” they recalled.
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It is the kind of moment that explains why the format can work beyond photography itself. Viewers are not simply watching a picture being printed. The videos have strangers, an unpredictable interaction and a small reveal at the end when the photograph develops.
For a page with only a few weeks of publishing behind it, those videos are already travelling considerably further than its follower count. The creators say the project was intended to become a business from the beginning, rather than remain an occasional content experiment.
“We are trying to turn it into a business. It started from a business point of view,” they said.
Whether the early Reel reach turns into a larger local business is still too soon to tell. But around 20 posts in, the Pune experiment has already found an audience far larger than the account following it.
