PhotoGazon - photographers and operators for your task. PhotoGazon - photographers and cameramen for your task Look At Me explored alternative platforms for posting photos for personal and professional purposes, as well as the communities that have developed around them

Users of one of the most popular sites for photographers, art lovers, and design ambiguously evaluate the redesign, moreover, for many, it has become an occasion to start looking for a new platform for publishing their work.

Look At Me explored alternative photo sharing platforms for personal and professional use and the communities that have developed around them.

Exposure, unlike Stampsy, was created as a platform for photographers with an emphasis on narratives, series of photographs united by one thought. In general, for photographers who want to tell stories, and not just upload photos as they come. This description includes not only sequentially arranged photographs, but also the actual description of what is happening on them. Of several such photo stories, in principle, it’s more than realistic to put together a kind of portfolio (even without buying a pro account - a free one allows you to publish three photo stories), if you don’t get around to making your own website. Although the latter, in general, in 2014 is a rather pointless undertaking.

Main plus

The ability to tell stories that are easy to read thanks to the illustrative series, and not just upload photos.

Also a kind of online photo storage, something like Tumblr, but for author's photos; the main difference from its predecessors is the ability to sell photos directly through the site. To do this, you need to select the For Professionals option, and then set the price of the photo, etc. The service promises to take care of all legal aspects, take care of protecting your copyrights and provide round-the-clock support if, for example, selling photos is a new business for you.

Main plus

Ability to sell photos directly through the site.

A platform for creating your own portfolio website for mobile and web versions, with a separate focus on iPhone and iPad. On the basis of the Viewbook, in fact, your own site is created, within the framework of the given design variations. Viewbook has 3 types of memberships, the cheapest one starts at $4 per month.

Main plus

Create a website with your own url.

The French-based site is arguably most popular among those who fled Flickr out of dissatisfaction with being out of control. appearance your page. Ipernity, indeed, is very similar in appearance and functionality to Flickr and, most importantly for the established community, the presence of groups (where any user can add their photos) and discussions - in general, it is the exchange of experience within the forum, supported by the visual part, and Flickr was strong the most.

Main plus

A photography community where many former Flickr users migrated to.

The VSCO app is remarkable not only for its filters (and tutorials on how to use them) and the purpose of reminding you that photos can still be beautiful, even if no one needs cameras anymore, but also for its attempts (quite successful) to develop a photo community. To do this, the team maintains VSCO Journal, where it shares the best photos, selected over the last week or weekend, and also created a special social network and at the same time a photo platform - VSCO Grid, in which each user of the application can upload their photos, and the most beautiful of them can get into the "editors' choice".

Main plus

VSCO does not just provide a platform for photos, but constantly publishes tutorials and interviews with professionals, that is, it tries to give users new knowledge.

Simply put, it's Learn from photography. Website slogan: a photo a day. The photos are sorted by the date you posted them and are side by side on a calendar. That is, it’s rather not even a platform, but a photo diary, which, with its functionality, reminds you that it’s time to update a couple of photos already. Well, the feedback system works according to the same principle: subscribers write comments by analogy with the same Livejournal.

Omsk entrepreneurs have created a service that allows you to order a photo from anywhere in the world

Uber, which offered the market a convenient and profitable model of interaction between the client and the service provider, has become an example for many entrepreneurs around the world - thousands of services are trying to implement a similar system in the most different areas. Including Uber has become a benchmark for the Omsk service Lookkapp, which allows you to order a photo from anywhere in the world. The founding fathers of the project, Nikolai Kudinov and Vyacheslav Silchenko, spoke to Biz360 about how the service works and how it earns.

Nikolai Kudinov and Vyacheslav Silchenko, entrepreneurs, were born and live in Omsk. were engaged software development, web design and app development. They founded the service, which is positioned as an international platform for the exchange and sale of photos from anywhere in the world.

What is the concept of the service

The idea of ​​the service arose spontaneously. Somehow we needed a photo from another city - an ad with a phone number. And it occurred to us that many people would be comfortable if they could get any photo from anywhere on the planet on request. There was no such service on the Internet, we were looking for it. And in the end, they launched their own. It still has no analogues.

Roughly speaking, we provide intermediary services between the customer of the photo and the person who can take this photo for you. Our site can be called an exchange, in general, it is a kind of Uber for photographers. By the way, the performer does not necessarily charge a fee, it happens that enthusiasts help the customer with a photo for free.

We described the range of tasks, assembled a team, and formed a work schedule. In the summer of 2015, we launched a trial version, and then a combat version with full functionality, as well as an Android application.

For example, an entrepreneur wanted to see how his money was spent, which he allocated for advertising in the region. They tell him on the phone: everything is fine, we have placed an advertisement and the whole city is hung with it. But if in doubt, you can place an order through our service - there will be non-affiliated interested people, they will take the number of photos the customer needs, they can be used to check the quality of the contract.

Another example is window display. For example, you have a federal network with branches in the regions. Everyone knows how the issue of shop window design is sometimes solved in the regions. In the field, they say one thing on the phone, but when you arrive, everything really looks different, some impassable corner, dirty shop windows, not all the goods are laid out, and so on. With our service, you do not need to go anywhere - the necessary photos will be sent to you.

Or, for example, you went on vacation, a house is being built for you at this time, you are worried about the state of your property, how the work is going ...

In general, there can be many applications for our service.

How the service works

Our service can not only help you get the right photo and pay for the photographer's work online, but also gives a certain guarantee of authenticity - all pictures are accompanied by geotags and tags with the time of shooting.

The system works in five languages ​​- Russian plus professional translation into four more languages. It is configured so that a customer from Russia can request information from a Spanish-speaking country, for example, and correspond with a specific contractor, all order conditions will be in Spanish.

The range of performers is quite wide, the system allows you to place orders through social networks - with special hashtags, by which the order can be found. Now we are also considering a B2B channel, we have authorization and export of orders to Linkedin. Accordingly, you can create orders for corporate clients.

As for promotion, the events here are standard: these are viral marketing, advertising in social networks, paid promotion through Yandex.Direct and Google, SMM marketing. Plus SEO-optimization of our site.

How does the service earn

We earn on the fact that we receive a percentage of the paid order. We have enough money for operating expenses. Prices are formed by agreement - someone is ready to pay 100 rubles for a photo, someone 5 dollars. The customer and the contractor can agree among themselves in a chat, one offered 500 rubles, and the other says, for example, that his order is less than 5000 is not interested. Average check is in the range from 500 to 3000 rubles. We cannot name the size of the commission, this is a trade secret.

The service paid off pretty quickly, we are profitable. We do not have such large expenses, and our still low income allows us to cover them. As for a serious leap forward, investments are needed. There is investor interest, we are now considering several proposals.

But there are downsides: Facebook doesn't offer many options other than the ability to tag, like, and comment. And if you want to print a photo, find a photo by date, title or geotag? Or do you simply decide one day to give up your Facebook frenzy and close your account?

The benefits of storing and publishing photos in repositories specifically designed for this are obvious. Such services offer not only more functional tools, editing and privacy settings, but also printing, copying photos from a phone, tablet or camera into a single library.

In this article, we compare five of the most popular photo storage sites (photo hosting) and talk about alternative solutions for professional photographers.

Reminder: if you uploaded a photo to the cloud and the service closed unexpectedly, you may lose all your photos. This doesn't happen often, and companies tend to send notices if they're about to close their business. But it's best to always have copies of your photos on your computer or external hard drive.

Photo Storage Comparison

	Flickr	Google Photos	Amazon Prime Photos	Photobucket	ThisLife
Is free	1TB	Unlimited (photo + video)	Unlimited for photos + 5GB for videos (Prime subscription)	2GB + 8GB with mobile apps	Unlimited
Paid	No ads for $5.99/mo, 2TB for $499/year	100GB for $1.99/mo, 1TB for $9.99/mo	$12/year, no subscription	From 20GB for $2.99/mo	Video: 60GB $20/year, 30GB $50/year, unlimited $140/year
File type	JPEG, GIF and PNG	JPEG, TIF, TIFF, BMP, GIF, PSD (Photoshop), PNG, TGA and some types of RAW	JPEG, BMP, PNG, TIFF and some types of RAW	GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG	JPEG
Size limit	Photo: 200MB, Video: 1GB	Photo: 75MB, Video: 10GB	Photo and video: 2GB	Free Plan: 5MB	Video: 2GB
traffic limit	Not	Not	Not	10GB/month free, unlimited paid	Not
Applications	iOS, Android, Mac and Windows	iOS, Android, Mac* and Windows**		iOS, Android, Mac and Windows	iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, Mac and Windows

*- for photos smaller than 2,048 pixels and videos shorter than 15 minutes.

**- Picasa desktop app.

Flickr

Flickr, one of the most famous photo repositories, has evolved significantly over the past 5 years, adding new features and changing the design. The service has become very flexible in use. Now you can organize photos into albums, then create collections from them. For those who want more, there are such functions: groups, marking and commenting, photo printing, statistics. Flickr also offers a web version for editing (cropping, red-eye removal, etc.).

Flickr recently introduced two new tools, Camera Roll and Uploadr to improve organization. Camera Roll is a photo timeline like an app iOS Photos. You can scroll through the months and years until you find what you are looking for. The new Magic View categorizes images by theme - you can view photos of landscapes, food, animals, children, portraits, etc. separately. Uploadr is a desktop tool for Mac and Windows that uploads photos from any folder on your computer or external hard drive. Both tools are currently in beta.

You get 1TB of free storage space. This is enough for 500 thousand photos. Each uploaded photo has a size limit of 2MB; video - 1GB (or 3 minutes). You can upload photos in their full original resolution.

Flickr offers 2 paid plans: the first one will get rid of ads, the second one will give you more space. For $6/month you can get everything functionality free account, but without annoying ads. If you need more storage, the $499/year plan (yes, we read that right) gives you an extra 2TB of photo and video storage. The latter is for professional photographers who need a lot of space. Most ordinary users are unlikely to fill even 1TB.

Advantages:

• 1TB of free storage space;
• easily adjustable privacy settings;
• completely and completely modified organizational tools.

Flaws:

• website design - a mix of new elegant design and outdated incomprehensible elements;
• uploading photos and organizing albums can be a tedious process, as navigating through the various menus and tools can get confusing;
• lack of support for raw files and animated GIFs.

Most suitable: those who prefer a certain freedom of action in organizing their photo materials; who wants to be part of a professional community of photographers.

Google Photos

The various storage options of Google Photos differ from those of other similar services in their lack of definition. There's Picasa, a desktop app that organizes your photos and can copy those files to the cloud. There is also Google Photos, a service built into Google+ and using Picasa technology. If you need old-school tools like burning to disk or batch editing, Picasa will do just fine. But if you just want to back up your photos online and post them online, Google Photos is worth a try.

So, go to your Google+ account and start uploading photos from your computer. It is possible to automatically upload photos from your phone or tablet using the Google+ app for Android and iOS. This service can work wonders by highlighting the most the best shots, improving the clarity/brightness of photos, piecing them together to create panoramas or GIFs. The service does all this on its own - you just need to upload a photo.

There is 15GB of free storage space, but that space is also for Gmail and Google Drive. Fortunately, photos smaller than 2048x2048 pixels and videos shorter than 15 minutes do not count towards the storage limit. If you need to upload longer videos and big photos- $1.99/month for an additional 100GB of storage or $9.99/month for an additional 1TB.

Advantages:

• uploading photos is a breeze thanks to the Photos Web interface;
• automatic extension of functionality requires absolutely no effort on your part;
• the service offers as many editing and organization tools as is enough for the average user without overloading it additional settings and printing services;
• supports most file formats except PSD, TGA and some raw formats.

Flaws:

• publishing a photo is not as easy as it would be desirable (in the event that we are not talking about Google+);
• you'll have to set it to "Public" so that others can see your photos (if they're not on Google+).

Most suitable: For those who already use Google, Google+ and especially Android products, Google Photos is built into the mobile OS.

Amazon Prime Photos

Prime Photos is included with an Amazon Prime subscription and gives you unlimited 5GB of space for videos or documents (not photos!). This service is part of Amazon Cloud Drive.

Without a Prime subscription, the unlimited plan costs $12/year, and you can also use a free three-month trial.

Advantages:

• not overloaded with unnecessary and useless functions for navigation; you just get storage for your photos, which can be viewed from any device connected to the Internet;
• the service is included in the $99 Prime subscription, and if you're already paying for it, you can enjoy unlimited storage space as well.

Flaws:

• limited choice organizational tools and no search.

Most suitable: those who are looking for the simplest and most convenient storage.

Photobucket

Almost 10 billion photos hosted on Photobucket speak for themselves - this service is popular. Photobucket offers unlimited storage for both photos and videos (with file size limits), album organization, Facebook integration, and mobile applications.

Photobucket allows you to share photos with friends or publish them to any of the social networks. The service itself generates URLs so that you can post and embed images. Therefore, Photobucket is the best solution if you need to regularly share photos on blogs or forums.

Built-in editing tools include cropping, adjusting brightness, and applying various effects (filters, frames, and stickers). You can print photos from your phone or tablet, create photo books, calendars and gifts.

Photobucket offers several plans, ranging from a free 2GB option (with a bandwidth limit of 10GB). If you download the mobile apps for iOS and Android, you'll get 8GB of free storage space.

Paid subscriptions range from $0.99/month for no ads and full 2GB storage to $40/month (or $400/year) for 500 additional GB of storage.

Advantages:

• Photobucket's focus on social networks makes it easy and quick to share photos with friends and family;
• editing option and additional mobile applications allow you to manage photos regardless of your location.

Flaws:

• the service overloads with various social functions;
• the community is overflowing with teenagers actively posting GIFs and photos for their LiveJournal or Tumblr.

Most suitable: users who want to quickly publish photos on social networks and blogs.

ThisLife by Shutterfly

The well-known photo printing service Shutterfly has a dedicated photo storage called ThisLife. Thanks to this service, you can upload an unlimited number of photos for free. But if you want to download videos as well, you need to choose one of the paid plans, starting at $20/year for 60GB of storage (roughly 1,000 videos) and going up. Photos from the main library are presented in a clear chronological order. You can see photos that are geotagged on the map. Using the “Highlight” function (turned on and off at will), ThisLife shows those frames from the collections that “in its opinion” deserve special attention. Photos imported and downloaded from the library can be organized into albums (called "Stories"), cropped and published online. You can also print and make photo gifts.

is a service for finding photographers and video operators, which opened in 2014. This is not just a site for communicating with colleagues and saving a portfolio, not a stock, which today is a dime a dozen. The resource was created primarily so that photographers and cameramen can earn money, and not only at weddings.

The main sections of the site

On the home page at the top we immediately see a convenient search. The right photographer or operator can be found by entering the city, subject, date of the event and budget. After entering the data, a list of suitable performers will immediately appear in front of you.

Since this is still an exchange, there is, of course, a section Orders. Here customers place projects for photographers and videographers.

This is what the order looks like inside:

As you can see, everything is according to a scheme familiar to many - those performers who agree to complete the order for the named amount respond to the ad, the customer himself will choose the contractor. Photographers work by phone, and it is very convenient that the city is displayed in the created order.

Not many ads are published on this exchange per day - 3-4; but remember the wide-profile exchanges - is there so much work for photographers?

The next major section of the site is Blogs. But if you are hoping to find useful articles and other useful information about photography here, you have come to the wrong place. Blogs on PhotoGazon are continuous questions and wishes from users.

How to use the service?

registration

For starters, it would be nice to register. You can go in two ways - choose standard registration through email or log in using social networks. In the second case, then some information about yourself can be edited.

During registration, you need to specify your role - customer or photographer.

Then indicate and confirm your phone number (optional), select a specialization. That's all.

Sandbox

Immediately after registering as a photographer, you find yourself in a sandbox that is not visible to customers. To get into the main catalog, you need to upload at least a few works in your portfolio and wait for ratings from at least two users on the site or an administrator. After that, you become a full member of the project and can already accept orders.

Personal account

Each user on the site has a personal account that is linked to the account. You can replenish it through the Yandex.Money service. A personal account is used to buy and renew services on the exchange, for example, a PRO account.

Portfolio

Each photographer can not only create their own portfolio on the site, but also group works into albums. This makes it easier for the customer to find a view of your work and, accordingly, a suitable performer.

It should be noted that in the catalog and on the main one, just a preview of your main album is displayed, and not an avatar, so you will be first of all judged by your work.

The calendar

The exchange has one very handy feature for photographers - a calendar. Here you can indicate which days you are already busy - so the customer can easily find out if you can count on you.

For violation of the schedule according to the calendar, the administrator can block you, so you should take it very seriously.

Features of registration and execution of the order

Customer selects a photographer or video operator from the catalog, then fills in the order form, describing in as much detail as possible all the features of the upcoming work. It is important to take into account the artist's employment on the selected date - for this, a calendar is maintained. The photographer receives a notification about the application, and within three days he must confirm participation in the order.

The customer also has the opportunity to approve an additional, alternate contractor - for this, you need to go to the settings of an already created order.

You can not offer a personal order, but create an ad in a special section of the exchange, then select a performer from those who have unsubscribed.

If freelancer offer a personal project, he receives a notification about it. By confirming participation, he thereby agrees with all the conditions put forward.

In the meantime, the freelancer reads the terms of the order and information about the customer, the exchange withdraws money from his personal account for providing this data. If the performer has a PRO account, the specified amount will not be withdrawn. That is, if you want to work - in any case, pay ...

If you need to clarify some details on the order, you can communicate with the customer using private messages.

When you take an order to work, on your personal account an amount equal to 10 percent of the total amount of the entire order is blocked if you do not have a PRO account.

Further orders can only be accepted after the completion of the current one. After the customer confirms receipt of materials for the order, he confirms this fact, and the project is considered closed. He practically cannot forget about it - notifications come to the mail and mobile.

PRO-account and other paid services

When registering on the exchange, each user receives a basic account, which allows you to choose only one specialization. In addition, owners of a regular profile pay a commission on each order - 10%.

You can purchase a PRO account, which costs 399 rub. per month. It not only exempts from the commission, but also provides a number of other advantages:

*high position in the catalog;

* unlimited downloading of works in the portfolio;

* any number of specializations;

*possibility to upload profile cover.

affiliate program

Works on the exchange and affiliate program:

General conclusions

PhotoGazon is an exchange from the creators of FL.ru. The scheme of work of photographers and videographers, their interaction with the customer is well thought out, but one thing upsets them - they take money from a freelancer in any case - if not a percentage of the order, then for a PRO account. The competition here is quite strong, especially in big cities.

In general, a good highly specialized exchange, a promising start.