The iPhone application Foap says $10. Actually…$5 after they take their cut. Here’s the rundown…
Foap is a micro stock photography app made exclusively for iPhone photography. You upload your photos for review using their app, and then when/if they’re approved they become available for purchase in their market for editorial or commercial use by third party companies. There’s no end to the number of times a single photo can be sold (at the fixed $10 rate), so there’s a lot of potential to earn money ($5 per sold photo) if your work is popular enough.
So what do you think? Sound like a good deal? Personally, I’m torn about whether or not I like this concept. Photographers get an incredibly easy way to put their photos on the market, buyers get super cheap images, and Foap gets to split the profits. So who wins in this scenario? Have any of you used this or other micro stock photography services with any success?
If this sounds intriguing to you, check out the Foap site for more information, or better yet, take the app for a test drive.
I’ve already heard tell of professional stock photographers finding copies of their work being sold on FOAP by different users. This has legal disaster written all over it. Please use with caution.
Why someone should buy pics from them when agencies like istock, shutterstock, fotolia ecc ecc…have muuuuuch better qualuty photos of any kind for cheaper prices?
I think $10 per photo is worth it if the photos are nice.
Wow. I’ve gotta say – I love this idea. Seems great for a person like me. That is, an aspiring photographer without the proper gear to do it professionally but with a pretty keen eye for composition and great timing. As a matter of fact, Chase chose a couple of my snap shots to use in his Dasein project at the Ace Hotel. Hopefully Foap will be interested in some of my shots. It’s better than having them sit on my HD not earning any money. Thanks so much for sharing.
Interestingly enough I am currently doing a multi day shoot for a large company who requires a library of images to use in various internal campaigns. Anything from posters to email and web sites. Their budgets are not particularly huge and in many cases specific posters and email have no budget but would be greatly enhanced by an image.
I did a quick search for some of the concepts we are covering in the shoot. There are certainly a lot of quality photos available in those categories. They are different type of shots to high end agencies though. I would call them cut away shots. We actually try and get them during the shoot. Quick snaps. Close ups. Shots with no setup.
I think people like my client would greatly benefit to add this web site to their resources.
On the other hand I can’t see how an individual photographer would make any amount of money that makes the effort worth while. Maybe if the photos I shoot go up automatically without doing any additional work. But I still can’t see how in an ocean of photos you would get any meaningful sales.