{"id":47646,"date":"2026-04-11T13:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T13:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47646"},"modified":"2026-04-11T13:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T13:07:14","slug":"nashville-photographer-goes-viral-for-her-intimate-stranger-shoots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/?p=47646","title":{"rendered":"Nashville photographer goes viral for her intimate Stranger Shoots"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>They\u2019re perfect strangers, but look picture perfect. <\/p>\n<p>A Nashville photographer gets millions of views online for her Stranger Shoots, where she picks a man and a woman who don\u2019t know each other and takes posed photos of them together as if they\u2019re a couple.<\/p>\n<p>The photos turn out more intimate than ones with real-life partners, with the pair staring into each other\u2019s eyes, touching one another\u2019s faces and waists, and fondly embracing.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@avareneephotography\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ava Butts<\/a> told The Post that her most successful shoot was with a couple she captured during Christmastime \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DR75PX-j5ac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Neyland and Katie<\/a> \u2014 who she has learned are now dating.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Ava Butts\u2019 subjects Neyland and Katie started dating after their Stranger Shoot. <span class=\"credit\">@ava.reneephotography on Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThey hit it off. We were there for over two hours, and I left and they stayed. And he actually posted her at his family Easter this past weekend,\u201d Butts, 20, said. <\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter wp-block-nypost-editor-primary-tag\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The idea for Stranger Shoots \u2014 which can each get close to 15 million views combined on TikTok and Instagram \u2014 came about when Butts saw a blind date photoshoot on Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>The first one she did was in the summer of 2024 with her male best friend from high school, Gavin McBee, and a woman she selected out of 10 who applied via an online form she posted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really just did it to embarrass him. I went overboard with the posing too,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-tiktok wp-block-embed-tiktok\"\/>\n<p>As she shot the photos, Butts also filmed the session using her Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, and when she was done, edited the video in a Little Caesar\u2019s parking lot and posted it to social media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn\u2019t ever going to do it again until he called me the next morning and was like, \u2018Holy crap, the video went viral,&#8217;\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomebody found his dad\u2019s phone number to try and see if they got together. People were coming up to him at his college and asking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cI just thought it\u2019d be funny to have someone my age be set up with another person that\u2019s also single and just see how awkward it would be,\u201d Butts said.\u00a0 <span class=\"credit\">@ava.reneephotography on Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>McBee never asked for the woman\u2019s number during the shoot, but attempted to contact her afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe DMed her two days later and was like, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re going viral.\u2019 And she never said anything back,\u201d Butts said.<\/p>\n<p>Butts then decided to use McBee\u2019s friend group at Middle Tennessee State University as Stranger Shoots subjects, pairing them with women she knew or who had mutual friends.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey all went viral. They actually have a competition of whose is going to do the best,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Her first Stranger Shoot went viral overnight.  <span class=\"credit\">@ava.reneephotography on Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-tiktok wp-block-embed-tiktok\"\/>\n<p>Although stranger photography is nothing new, Butts said the fact that she pairs the photos with behind-the-scenes videos sets her work apart.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce I posted that so many people started doing the behind-the-scenes videos of Stranger Shoots \u2026 it kind of took off on TikTok,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>She is now inundated with hundreds asking to participate, but prefers to keep it to at least one acquaintance, \u201cso it won\u2019t go super horrible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Butts started a Stranger Shoots TikTok trend and is now inundated with requests from singles who want their own. <span class=\"credit\">@ava.reneephotography on Instagram<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Although she does Stranger Shoots for free, the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/28\/lifestyle\/nyc-dress-designer-goes-viral-for-carving-a-snow-mannequin\/\">viral videos<\/a> have gained her many paid clients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it didn\u2019t bring people to my page, I would not do them because it\u2019s just so much drama,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The most drama-filled shoot happened when the man abruptly said he had to leave.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd we\u2019re joking like, \u2018Oh, is your girlfriend waiting on you,&#8217;\u201d Butts said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe photos were super cute. I post the video. Not even five minutes later, somebody calls me and is like, \u2018He\u2019s married.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/04\/11\/lifestyle\/nashville-photographer-goes-viral-for-her-intimate-stranger-shoots\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019re perfect strangers, but look picture perfect. A Nashville photographer gets millions of views online for her Stranger Shoots, where she picks a man and a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foreignnewstoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}