Instagram popularity leads to free island holiday

Social media fads blow hot and cold but for Paul Vella, a humble airconditioner mechanic by day turned snap-happy photographer in his spare time, Instagram, a kind of visuals-driven Twitter, has proved a breath of fresh air.

So much so that it's seen his arty shots followed by nearly 200,000 fans around the world. Vella's photography - mostly dreamy shots of landscapes and seascapes on the central coast of NSW - has led him to become one of Australia's most followed snappers on Instagram, which invites users to take photos, apply "retro-style" filters and share them with their followers.

It was launched in 2010 and was sold to Facebook for $1 billion last April. It now boasts 100 million monthly active users around the world, including more than one million in Australia and millions more followers both here and around the world.

Australia's most popular instagrammers are Gold Coast pop singer Cody Simpson, with almost 1.5 million followers, and Miranda Kerr, who has close to 1.3 million followers. Others include fashion bloggers Jessica Stein of Tuula Vintage, and Nicole Warne of Gary Pepper Vintage, who have both gathered over 400,000 followers.

While Vella lacks the fame and glamour of his fellow highly-followed Instagrammers, he attributes his garnering of hundreds of thousands of followers from around the globe mainly to good timing.

He was introduced to Instagram when his girlfriend installed it on his phone two years ago, meaning he started using the app when it was relatively new and there weren't as many users.

That made it easier for Vella to "connect with the community" by commenting on other people's photos and hashtagging his own images with highly searched words, such as "reflections" and "ocean".

"I think my photos have also gotten better since then", says the Sydney-based Vella, who admits he knew far more about airconditioning units than about photography when he first started. Along the way he's progressed from taking snaps on his phone, to using a digital camera, to using a professional DSLR camera, to now putting himself through an online photography course.

"I've always been interested in photography but the positive feedback I was getting [from Instagram users] definitely made me want to learn more about it," he says. "I'm now trying to get my foot in the door with professional photography, and Instagram's a good start."