Why are there so many photographers on Facebook?

The average person doesn’t really think about photographers. We might see evidence of their work all around us, we might take shots of our own, but people who do this for a living? They’re not, shall we say, top of mind. Though I’ve studied the work of Sontag and Barthes, I certainly never gave photographers much thought beyond people like Roger Ballen. As for fashion photography, this site sums up my long-held views of it.

Then I dated somebody for whom photography is a pretty serious hobby — to the extent that he wrote intimidatingly technical advice columns for local photography magazines — and my eyes were opened. Turns out there are a lot of South African photographers on Facebook. A lot. It took me a while to pick this up, but when I did, I was intrigued. If you click on the average photographer profile, you’ll see that they are friends of all the other photographers and all the models and makeup artists who are part of the photography ecosystem too. Everybody comments on everybody else’s pictures. It’s like … the circle of life or something, where everything is connected to everything else.

In fact, if you were looking for an example of just how well Facebook can work as a genuinely useful networking tool — one that apparently generates actual business — you’d be hard pressed to find a better one. Photographers and the people who pose for them (and the people who make the people who pose for the photographers look pretty) have taken Facebook and made it their own. Sit back to observe and you will notice that photographers source models and makeup artists on Facebook; they also issue queries about locations and ask around for assistants in their status updates. Many of them of them have both a Facebook identity and a fan page, and all of them are careful to upload their latest shots to be viewed by their fellow professionals and friends. Some of them have huge numbers of Facebook friends, more than many local celebrities.

Take Adele Moolman. She has 4 736 friends. Her fiancé, Dave Nemeth, also a professional photographer, has 4 850. Matt Raven has 4 974. He writes status updates like: “In what other profession can you go on helicopter tours, powerboat rides, shark cage diving, bungee jumping, canopy tour, game drives, hot air ballooning, elephant sanctuary tour, lion park tour, plus much more…” I try not to read things like that too often. Much too depressing.

The photographer I used a month ago, Kat Grudko, is a relative newcomer and has accumulated a mere 866 friends, double the number I can boast. (Photographers are clearly more popular than writers.) As with other photographers, she has both a fan page and a personal page, and uses Facebook to upload her latest shots and link to her blog. Other businesses trying to crack social media could learn from this.

Indeed, in some cases, Facebook is replacing advertising. During the shoot with Kat, I got chatting with the makeup artist. Specifically, I wanted to know how Cicilia Kaufmann had managed to accumulate so many Facebook friends — 4 814 at the time of writing. She said she didn’t really know, but that Facebook was so effective at bringing her new business that she no longer needed to advertise. Cicilia, who is sure to be even more popular now that she’s part of designer Eric Way’s reality show Dream Team, has now started a second Facebook identity to handle the extraordinary number of people who want to be her friend.

Why have photographers focused — no pun intended — on Facebook in this way? Part of it must be the fact that it is so easy to upload photographs. Facebook also makes it easy for others to comment, and since everyone’s here anyway, you might as well join them if you can’t beat them. (One photographer friend observes that Facebook is the perfect place for photographers, rather like a bar is the perfect place to get drink.) Though these photographers also list a great many non-photographers as friends, there’s also a very clear sense of reciprocality in the photography world. Photographers, models and makeup artists are all friends with each other, creating a community within a community. I can’t be sure since I’m not part of this world, but I wonder how much of a role a sense of social or professional obligation plays in prompting photographers to friend each other and offer commentary on each other’s work. (That said, I have seen some very bitchy comments about the work of rival photographers as well as status updates about unfriending people because their work is rubbish, so this does not always hold true.)

I have not seen Facebook used in this way by any other industry, not even advertising or the geekosphere. While there are clear marketing lessons to be learned from the photographic community’s use of social media, there’s also something interesting going on here from a purely anthropological, perhaps even a behavioural economics viewpoint. Somehow, for some reason, photographers have got social media right. Somebody really should write a thesis on this.