If you are on Instagram, I’m sure you follow people for any number (or all) of these reasons: you have some kind of personal relationship or friendship, they are leaders or inspirational figures, they teach, they enrich your mind… and I’m sure there are many more.

The following accounts fit the above bill to different degrees, but one thing they have in common is that they inspire my creativity in two main ways. The first is they can manage to create a vignette, a scene in a shot that is loaded with significance and weight. Sometimes I will see a photo and I think, That could be the perfect setting for a short story opening I’ve been thinking about, or a poem trigger. The second way is they inspire me to do more: create, act, inspire. Continue on my own path, even when I might be feeling discouraged.

So here are my current favourites, the ones that feed my creativity.

@Joydot

Joy takes stunning photographs. Stunning. She has recently been in Iceland and managed to depict its beauty and wild desolateness in such a way I want to travel there immediately. Scroll a bit further back through her feed and you’ll see her trip to Jordan and all those rich desert colours – a big contrast, and equally beautiful.

@Fourjams

I love how Kirsty takes the everyday moments and manages to magnify them to glorious levels. Visits to the beach, capturing a fading flower, or capturing a child twirling and dancing in a sunset, they’re all there. Sometimes I look at an image and I feel instantly calmed, a respite from the text-heavy and message-driven shots from other users that can be annoying.

@bookscalling

Jakub Pavlovsky began Book’s Calling to deliver a simple message that is its byline: Make Time for Reading. Anywhere, Anytime. Anyone who knows me will be able to tell you this is my kind of message too. The feed mostly features Jakub in various gorgeous settings reading and I just love it.

@sesameellis

Sesame Ellis, aka Rachel Devine, is a world-respected photographer and a woman I’m lucky enough to call my friend. I worked with her on her most recent ebook, Life in Natural Light, and it’s no surprise she was asked to write about that topic. Her shots are composed and airy and I feel like each are a potential lesson in technicality as well as inspiring an emotional response and that is her gift. She took the above shot while in Borneo and I just loved its evocation of tropical conditions.

Tell me what are you favourite people or accounts to follow on Instagram. Why do they inspire you? I’d love to check them out.