Yesterday, I was a bit of doom and gloom as Facebook started playing their algorithm games on their Instragram to make it their next cash cow. Similar to Facebook; soon you can have 40,000 or more followers on IG, but only 25 of these will see what you post in their feed.
I had stated that the pro photographers, or those who wanted to be getting paid like a pro photographer, had been doing okay using Instagram to get travel or life style jobs. And that was starting to change. Not for the better. But there still might be a contrianian upside to this Instagram situation; perhaps not entirely doom and gloom for pro photographers.
After my post a friend of mine who runs a SoCal rental photo studio sent me a message stating that there was one photographic segment which was doing really, really well using Instagram for photographic job referrals; Fashion photography. Seems that the various aspects of Fashion; beauty tips, make-up, hairstyle, clothing, accessories, shoes, jewelry, hang-bags, etc is still HOT on Instagram. Lots and lots of traffic that talks and shares the latest fashion trends.
The key to this photographic market is that those who want their Fashion stuff to be seen on social media need photographic help and are looking for lifestyle, portrait and product photography skills, both studio and location work.
Okay, this is also an opportunity to show my simple little pop-up studio set-up, photo above, which I use to photograph flat-art (books/products) for my magazine illustrations. No, I am not looking for any studio gigs. sorry.
Now back to the story; thus the Fashion trend setters also track, follow and connect with the photographers who are behind the scenes making all of the Fashion work that gets onto Instagram and other social media. My initial guess is that this Fashion-Instagram trend might just be most relevant to photographers in the big-city; LA, Chicago, NYC here in America. But in thinking about it, the world of Fashion is broad, huge and diverse; from country-western to inner-city. I am guessing that there are a few really big name Fashion photographers, but I suspect lots of opportunity for others photographers.
Regretfully, I am not a Fashion photographer, so I cannot in any way provide hints on how to maximize the Fashion-Instragram trend. My guess is that to get attention, you need to post and hashtag like crazy samples of your fashion work. But the buzzzz I hear is that the photographic work is out there for Fashion work, so if you are intrigued, do some more poking around as others are probably talking about this aspect of Fashion-Instagram and probably can provide more hints or think about taking a Fashion photography workshop to get your skills tuned up for this market.
Now back to my artistic projects as I just received an acceptance letter for a summer exhibition that I now need to prepare for. And of course I will provide more information about that here shortly. Stay tuned!
Cheers
Featured photograph, above: Studio, PhotoBook Journal, copyright 2017 Douglas Stockdale
Singular Images 
It was an interesting topic. Thanks for the writing