Working with brands is one of the main ways artists and content creators can earn substantial income today. However, it’s not easy for creators to connect with brands, and companies looking for new or specialized talent also have a hard time finding it. Photo editing app VSCO is trying to solve this problem for its core audience, professional photographers, with a new marketplace called VSCO Center that aims to connect them with brands.
The VSCO platform is similar to other social platforms such as Instagram, Youtube and TikTok, which already offers creator marketplaces to help businesses discover content creators and build partnerships with them.
VSCO CEO Eric Wittman, who joined the company last September, likens the new portal to LinkedIn. “VSCO Hub is almost like LinkedIn. Brands act as recruiters and can easily find someone for their projects and connect with them,” he told TechCrunch during a call.
To get access to VSCO Hub, photographers will need to sign up for the $59.99 Pro plan, which has over 160,000 subscribers. For businesses, the platform offers filters such as location, category, price, and availability that they can use to narrow their search for photographers.
The platform also has an interesting feature: it allows creative directors to upload a reference image and search for photographers who may have similar work in their portfolios.
Image credits: VSCO
VSCO does not receive a share of the project payments and simply acts as a connecting layer.
Wittman blames social media algorithms for the lack of visibility in the photography community, saying that marketers spend many hours on Google or Instagram trying to find photographers whose work matches their creative vision.
“Because of how social media has changed itself and its algorithms, it is very difficult for photographers to get discovered by potential clients. We saw the need in our photography community and decided to build VSCO Hub,” she said.
VSCO is also looking to bolster its search with AI. Wittman said the company is internally testing a way for brands to enter text queries and find images through semantic search, and this feature is coming to the platform soon. VSCO also plans to add more filters to help businesses narrow their searches.
Wittman and VSCO’s stance on the use of AI is similar to that of many other platforms: the technology will be used to help artists, not replace them. The CEO said his company is looking to launch more AI-based tools to help photographers in their workflows.
In particular, tools like Visual Electric, backed by Sequoia, and LTX Studio, from Facetune maker Lighttrick, help artists generate ideas and focus on workflows. Wittman believes that ideation, not production, is where creatives will look to further hone AI skills.
