500px has been one of the biggest players in the photo sharing and photographer community spaces for many years now. The company has branched out, adding its own stock offering, and today it has announced some exciting new features starting with their development of a brand new photographer directory.
The idea behind this directory is to make 500px photographers quickly searchable, by location and specialty, to make it easier than ever for them to be found and get hired. The service is currently in beta with over 49,000 photographers servicing clients such as Airbnb, Google, and Lonely Planet.
From the client side, it works by users going to the website and searching for photographers in their area based on specialty. Once they sift through the various available photographers and find one they want to hire, they can simply click ‘Hire’ to initiate contract negotiations right then and there.
This is the next step for 500px as they look beyond setting prices for their photographers with their stock photography offering, instead allowing photographers to connect with clients directly, setting their own rates and making their own negotiations. It will be interesting to see how this new service pans out and if it actually turns into a solid place for photographers to find contract jobs.
Beyond the new directory service, 500px has also announced a new partnership with Adobe Stock, which will make a selection of 500px imagery available to designers and marketers directly within Creative Cloud and its Adobe Stock integration.
This move will be great for designers and creatives looking to have the same easy access to some 500px images as they do to Adobe Stock images. The jury is still out on whether this is good for the photographers at all, as details about exactly how this will affect their bottom lines were not specified.
Overall some solid announcements today by 500px, which is continuing to build out their ecosystem to increase opportunities for their photographers. You can find out more about these announcements over on the 500px website, here.