Corporate "Escapologist" Sets Stock Photography Free

United Kingdom, August 25, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Former corporate high flyer, entrepreneur and passionate smartphone photographer, Brad Binding, is turning the world of photography on its head with his new take on how anybody can profit from their photographers & businesses and media can find unique photography for their website or advertising.

Instead of restricting the ability to make money from stock photography to professional photographers, everyone from pros to keen amateur photographers, to those who just enjoy taking a snap on their travels and days out, can upload their photos to TakenPlace and potentially make money from them.

“With TakenPlace I hope to give anyone, whatever their ability, the opportunity to make money from taking photos of the places they go and the things they see” says Binding, founder of TakenPlace.

He adds, “Businesses and media buyers are more cost conscious than ever and there is a real focus on authenticity when it comes to marketing. Your normal stock photo just doesn’t cut it these days. Our clients want highly specific photos of their actual business premises. With TakenPlace they can get exactly that and our photographers earn one of the best commission fees in the industry.”

The geo-tagging technology used by the TakenPlace site combines the “searchability” and quality of a traditional stock photography site with the highly specific technology used in Google Maps.

“The techy part of TakenPlace means our customers can simply type in their business or venue address and only photos of that location will appear in their results. No more searching through over-used stock photos of generic business types,” he says.

TakenPlace was born of a desire to enable anyone with a genuine interest in photography to be able to make money from their snaps.

Binding asserts, “I believe anyone can take a good photo on any device and rather than just sharing them randomly on social media, they should be given the opportunity to make money from their abilities. Add that to the real lack of genuine and location specific stock photos for businesses and media buyers and you have the reason TakenPlace exists.”

TakenPlace is currently in development and launches on the 31st August. The doors are currently open to a small audience of early adopters, as it gets run through its paces.

Notes to Editors:

Like many a great film, our story starts with a wedding.

I am very lucky to have many talented semi-professional & professional photographers as friends and as a result we had more cameras pointing at us on our wedding day than you could comfortably shake a stick at.

Knowing how much my wife and I like to travel, one of them gifted us a Panasonic Lumix (FT4) to take on our honeymoon.

As you’ll likely know, the Lumix not only has a reputation for being an incredibly precise and easy to use camera but it also has a GPS feature. The geek in me literally squeaked in delight.

I thought, “Brilliant! Not only will we have the visual cue for our special memories but we’ll know where every single shot was taken.” Talk about a journey.

And that’s when my obsession with location specific photography started and TakenPlace was born.

Over the coming years I continued to support my photographer friends, lending them my business acumen gained working for some of the world’s biggest names; helping to carry their equipment or even round up elderly relatives at weddings,

Watching them struggle to make their talents pay was not meant to be part of the deal.

It seemed to me, a relative outsider to the industry, that selling photographs (outside of pre-arranged jobs) was becoming more the business of the corporations than talented artists.

I love a challenge and decided to turn my skills to solving this problem. I wanted to ensure individuals had a means to fund their passion through a fair mechanism. I envisioned linking talented individuals directly with businesses who want to use their photographs, all the time ensuring the protection of the owners’ rights.

No more handing over your intellectual property via social media in the hopes of getting credited on a company website or giving your best shot for free to the TV news for not even a credit or by-line.

Together with my wife, we gained the insights of our photographer friends and the wider photographic community, and using my knowledge of web development I set out to create TakenPlace.

Our ambitions were simple – level the playing field and give every budding photographer (professional, semi-pro and talented amateur) a chance to make their smartphone snaps, their point ‘n’ click photos & professional DSLR creations available to businesses across the world.

But not being the type to follow established convention I wanted to go further.
I continually heard how existing stock sites utilised ‘tags’ but how these often turned into a keyword game for photographers and media buyers alike.

Continually searching for the best use of generic words to get that sale or find that ideal image for your holiday brochure. What if there was a better way?

And now we find ourselves back at the beginning. Remember that marvellous camera we were given as our wedding gift, the cunning use of GPS! Why not sell photos based purely on their location?

Allowing businesses to search for photographs showcasing their premises, inside and out, would give a whole new angle to their media. Not only would these buyers have access to 1000s of photographers worldwide but they could pinpoint one place – their bar, hotel or a specific event – and see a million stunning moments, available for them to use across their marketing and advertising platforms for a fraction of the cost of hiring a professional photographer.

So here we are: from wedding – to case carrier – to “granny rounder-upper” – to creating a brand new direction for photography sales and rewarding talented photographers at all talent levels.

Taken Place is currently in Early Access mode for the early adopters who have signed up for the service. Full launch is on 31st August. Registration is free.