Foap Allows iPhoneographers To Earn Money With Their iPhone Photos

    Perhaps as a sign of how good the cameras have gotten on smartphones these days, a Malmö-based company has introduced a new web service that enables users to sell their iPhone photos. The service, called Foap, is basically a unique stock image directory that allows anyone to buy the rights needed to legally add users’ iPhone photos to their websites or publications. Each photo is listed for $10, and revenue is split 50/50 with the photographer and Foap.

    You can tell a small selection of the photos have Instagram dimensions and tint, but Foap filters the submissions to ensure quality composition, size, and lack of crazy filters. My searches for a few random keywords returned a decent amount of material. The app launched in the Scandinavian AppStores on May 15, and has seen thousands of registered users who have uploaded tens of thousands of photos, according to the company.

    “In the end, it’s about accepting photos that will sell. We want to attract the best iPhoneographers and those who are passionate about photography rather then everyone,” says David Los, Co-founder of Foap.

    Like Helsinki-based Scoopshot, Foap also allows particular photo content to be requested and sourced from users. Trying to find anything half-decent in a stock photo website is its own level of hell, so given an unlimited advertising budget it makes sense to crowdsource material from a broke college kids.

    What type of pictures do you have on your iPhone though? Probably just pictures of your cat, that ‘artistic’ one of your Macbook keyboard, and the top of that one latte that was all fancy. Foap will be overrun with these pictures. But it might get people thinking about taking pictures of concepts that sell, like “communication” and “teamwork.”

    Foap has raised $230 000 (€181 000) to date.