People needing photos in certain parts of the world?

[brendanlnz]

A small number of years ago, we developed a service that would allow people to request help from people in certain parts of the world - basically, where they aren't themselves and don't know anyone there. Our catch line is "Find people to do things for you, anywhere in the world"

Time has gone by and it never really got off the ground, while other services seem to be doing very well. Our problem was being to generic and not specialist enough to hone in on a market. Still, it remains niche enough that its truly global, easy to use and more recently, free.

We've been looking at it again lately and a lot of people have suggested that it might be of help to the photography community. An example that we've heard a few times is needing recent photos of somewhere, with certain requirements and perhaps being royalty free as well. So our questions here are, would such a global reach service be of value to the good folks here? Would it be a good place to direct either yourselves or other people in need of certain photos? What would be a good approach to reaching out further into the photography world?

We're not going to list the service here just yet. We're going to wait until either asked or someone else includes it in the thread. Crossing that spam line on forums has been one of the difficulties in promotion

If there's anyway to improve our services to be more aligned to some of the business threads here, we would be glad to hear from you. We'll look to mark the listed Needs with certain categories e.g. photography, if this approach proceeds.

Thanks for your time and thoughts
Brendan and Emily Lester

 

[snowbear]

Welcome aboard.

There are many microstock sites, including those with royalty free and creative commons images. Good luck.

 

[KmH]

If you decide you want to list the service here I highly recommend you first contact TPF management and arrange rights to do so.

 

[robbins.photo]

A small number of years ago, we developed a service that would allow people to request help from people in certain parts of the world - basically, where they aren't themselves and don't know anyone there. Our catch line is "Find people to do things for you, anywhere in the world"

Time has gone by and it never really got off the ground, while other services seem to be doing very well. Our problem was being to generic and not specialist enough to hone in on a market. Still, it remains niche enough that its truly global, easy to use and more recently, free.

We've been looking at it again lately and a lot of people have suggested that it might be of help to the photography community. An example that we've heard a few times is needing recent photos of somewhere, with certain requirements and perhaps being royalty free as well. So our questions here are, would such a global reach service be of value to the good folks here? Would it be a good place to direct either yourselves or other people in need of certain photos? What would be a good approach to reaching out further into the photography world?

We're not going to list the service here just yet. We're going to wait until either asked or someone else includes it in the thread. Crossing that spam line on forums has been one of the difficulties in promotion

If there's anyway to improve our services to be more aligned to some of the business threads here, we would be glad to hear from you. We'll look to mark the listed Needs with certain categories e.g. photography, if this approach proceeds.

Thanks for your time and thoughts
Brendan and Emily Lester

Ok, well I certainly can't speak for everyone here but I'm an amateur shutterbug. I like taking my own pictures. I don't really have any desire to have other people take pictures for me, so the service you describe (free or not) would be of little to no interest to a guy like me at all.

I guess other folks might have an interest, but my guess is a lot of them fall into the same camp I do. They want to take their own pictures, not get pictures taken by someone else. Sort of defeats the whole purpose of spending all that money on camera gear.

 

[Gary A.]

I am confused.

If you are seeking a resource of photographers from around the world to help fulfill your catch line. Then yes, you have come to a good place.

If you are seeking people that need to obtain images from parts of the world which are not easily accessible to them ... I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

This is a community of photographers, of people who take photographs. Not a community of people who collect photographs.

 

[brendanlnz]

If you are seeking a resource of photographers from around the world to help fulfill your catch line. Then yes, you have come to a good place.

That's it, spot on. For example, one of our first listings was a person needing some photographs of a old family tree book in Latvia. He didn't know anyone there and was able to simply list his need with us. Someone over there discovered it and was able to help him out.

I was thinking keeping an eye on requests like this may have been of interest to this community. Does this community use any other services like this for new, specialty request, remote photos?

The complexity of setting up our service didn't completely dawn on us until around our go-live. Suddenly we were faced with needing to establish a 'two sided market place. Requiring people that both needed something done remotely and people available there to help. Without either, it wouldn't work. Interesting and frustrating.

Anyway, appreciate the thoughts guys.

 

[dennybeall]

"Stock Photos" are very, very well covered by a number of companies. Although just googling what pictures you want will get most people an acceptable image.