Andy Edwards’ wife began competing in equestrian events about five years ago, so he dutifully tagged along.
“I wanted to be a good husband and go along and support,” he said, “but when I realized that she was only spending 12 minutes on the horse over a whole weekend, I needed to do something to keep myself busy.”
A photography enthusiast who had recently purchased a DSLR camera, Edwards had ample chance to practice. With 600 participants spanning a 10-acre field, he also realized that the official event photographer had no chance to properly document the experience alone. To try to solve that problem, Edwards founded a photography platform called GeoSnapShot that pairs organizers of mass participation sporting events with local photographers interested in making some money off their passion.
“It became evident to me that people were losing their memories from these events,” Edwards said. “They weren’t being captured.”
When photos were being taken, the system had “a lot of fragmentation,” he added, with those images ending up on Dropbox, a personal website, or Facebook without participants knowing where to find them. Even if a rider could find the collection, he or she would then have to sift through countless files to find a relevant one.
Based in Edwards’ native Australia, GeoSnapShot has since uploaded 2.6 million photos from 5,000 events on six continents and has recently added facial recognition technology to help users search for images of themselves.
Organizers of events can list their competition for free and connect with interested amateur photographers in the area. The photographers can also share their experience and portfolios on the site. GeoSnapShot provides public liability insurance (except in North America), ensures that photographers at events where minors are present have completed required checks for working with children, and collects all the post-event photos to make the experience safe and hassle-free.
Typically, a photographer receives 70 percent of the revenue from the sale of photos and GeoSnapShot collects the other 30 percent, although there are some variations for ongoing event partners and for charitable causes. The site sets a standard price—$6.40 (U.S.), AUD$8.95 (Australia), £4.95 (U.K.)—but that can be adjusted.
The most innovative feature of GeoSnapShot is its facial recognition technology. Edwards said the bulk of that system’s development was done in-house with some use of external APIs. Rather than participants of, say, a marathon tediously clicking through dozens of pages of thumbnails, they can instead take a selfie or upload a photo for the system to match. Results are returned in order of confidence that the images are matches.
“It’s a major factor in driving sales and ease of use for people searching photos,” Edwards said.
Facial recognition technology in other sectors has drawn scrutiny from privacy advocates, and GeoSnapShot has integrated safeguards into its system. “We take privacy and protection concerns very seriously, especially with minors,” Edwards said.
Event organizers can password-protect photographs and can remove any sensitive images, and photos uploaded for facial recognition searches are not saved. Edwards added that more security options might be possible. Searches could be restricted so that one can only see photos if they have a face match, for instance. Also, those with a face match could be notified that a photo has been uploaded, so that they can contact the organizer and have it removed.
“There’s a whole range of privacy tools that can be used in the future,” Edwards said.
To date, GeoSnapShot has grown supporting grassroots events as an “Uber for sports photography” gig economy model, but Edwards said the company is on the brink of expansion to bigger events and partnerships. He’s not looking to staff major professional events as those already have pro photographers on site. Those, Edwards said, only account for two percent of global sporting events, however. “We want to cover the other 98 percent,” he said.
Edwards said he has sold 1,800 of his shots through GeoSnapShot but, as business has ramped up, he has had to put his own hobby aside.