When we say we love the South, we’re not just paying lip service. Every day our team is out there exploring our region finding the people and places that fill our pages every month. Along the way we conjure plenty of Instagram-worthy moments that we’d love to share with you. We dug through our editors’ and photographers’ feeds to pull images that represent where we were this week. Clearly, we love what we do.

Photo by Erin Street

Travel editor Erin Street (@erinshawstreet) spent the weekend in Gulf Shores, Alabama, serving as a judge at the Gulf Coast Oyster Cookout hosted at The Hangout. This sunset shot shows off the calm beauty of the Gulf in the off-season.

Photo by Art Meripol

Staff photographer Art Meripol (@ameripol) snapped this photo of voters waiting in line on Tuesday in Birmingham, Alabama.

Photo by Kate Phillips

Photo editor Kate Phillips (@something_kate) was inspired by the view at Railroad Park in Birmingham, Alabama, during her afternoon stroll on Sunday.

Photo by Laurey W. Glenn

Photographer Laurey Glenn (@laureywglenn) got to travel back to her hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and took this photo of The Golden Driller, one of America’s largest statues.

Photo by Stephanie Granada

Travel editor Stephanie Granada (@sgranada) spent her birthday in Trinity, Alabama, picking cotton at Alabama Chanin and Billy Reid’s organic-cotton field. The designers and Jim ‘N Nick’s Bar-B-Q hosted a picking party complete with a whole-hog barbecue lunch. Keep an eye out for notice of the next picking party—you won’t want to miss it.

And follow @southernlivingmag for behind-the-scenes photos, snapshots from the road, and a sampling of what goes on at the SL headquarters. You may or may not see things like our editor-in-chief riding a bicycle down the hallway.

Photo by Stephanie Granada