Instagram Photo Find

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name: instagram-photo-find description: Find high-quality Instagram photos for any destination or place. Searches for Instagram posts via web search, downloads candidate images, vision-scores them for quality and iconic-ness, and returns the best matches with source URLs. Use when you need travel/destination photos from Instagram, hero images for a location, or Instagram post images for any place or attraction.

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Instagram Photo Find

Find the best Instagram photo for a given destination or place name.

Workflow

Step 1 — Search for Instagram post URLs

Search Brave for: site:instagram.com/p/ {destination} popular photo

Request 10 results

If the destination is a specific attraction/restaurant, use its name directly (e.g. site:instagram.com/p/ "Barton Springs" Austin)

Step 2 — Filter candidates by title

From search results, pick the top 5-6 candidates based on titles that suggest scenic/visual content:

Prefer titles with:

Visual/emotional language ("beautiful", "colors", "stunning", "golden hour", "aerial", "skyline")

Specific landmark names

Travel/photography language ("travel", "explore", "photography")

Skip titles that suggest:

Brand/corporate posts (Nike, concerts, conferences)

Personal diary posts ("photo dump", "my trip")

Celebrity/influencer selfies

Non-photo content (events, announcements)

Step 3 — Download images

For each candidate, extract the image via:

https://www.instagram.com/p/{shortcode}/media/?size=l

Use curl -s -L (follows the 302 redirect to CDN)

Skip any that return non-200 or < 10KB (likely broken/removed)

Save to /tmp/ with descriptive names

Step 4 — Vision-score each image

Run each downloaded image through the vision model with this prompt:

> Describe briefly. Rate 1-10 as a hero destination photo for {destination} (iconic, scenic, represents the place well). Description + score only.

Step 5 — Return results

Return images ranked by score. For each result, provide:

Score and brief description

Instagram post URL (instagram.com/p/{shortcode}/)

Local file path

Parameters

destination (required): Place name (e.g. "Mexico City", "Taormina Italy", "Barton Springs Austin")

count (optional, default 2): How many top results to return

search_variant (optional): Additional search terms to append (e.g. "photography", "travel guide")

Tips

For broad destinations (cities/countries), the generic search works well

For specific attractions, quote the name: "Palacio de Bellas Artes"

If first search yields low scores (< 6), retry with landmark-specific queries

The /media/?size=l endpoint requires no authentication

Carousel posts return only the first image

Video posts may return a thumbnail

For broad destinations (cities/countries), the generic search works well

For specific attractions, quote the name: "Palacio de Bellas Artes"

If first search yields low scores (< 6), retry with landmark-specific queries

The /media/?size=l endpoint requires no authentication

Carousel posts return only the first image

Video posts may return a thumbnail