The Life Cycle of the [Yaperture] Photograph

Posted 3 yearss ago by Chris

We've been getting quite a few questions about the life cycle of the photograph here on Yaperture, and since we're a bit light on FAQs at this point, I thought I'd clear up a few things. While I unfortunately can't post some sweet illustrations like The Very Hungry Caterpillar (let's face it, that's the best life cycle book out there), I'll do my best.

The first step is a bit obvious: you, our talented community, post a photo. After that, it is up to you and the rest of the Yaperturians to feed your photo (you see what I did there? a caterpillar reference? I know, brilliant) - each photo has 14 days to get voted up as much as possible. The more votes, the more likely your photo will end up in the marketplace where people can buy prints and you can fatten your pocket (more on that later). Each photo has 14 days for a reason: this puts every submission on equal footing. The submissions are rolling, so there are no cut-off dates for photos chosen for the marketplace. In a couple weeks, based on which photos are ranked the highest, we will pick ten photos to be turned into butterflies (ha!) and sold in the marketplace. After that, we'll pick 5 photos every week (again, based on ranking), and each print will stick around the marketplace page for 4 weeks. For photos that have made it through the initial two week voting period but have not made it to the marketplace, these photos will stick around on the site but voting will be disabled (it's a hard knock life out there! Not every print can be a winner...).

And now for the fun part: if your photo does make it to the marketplace, then you not only get your very own matted version of your photo but also a cut of the action. One of the main goals of Yaperture is to encourage people to actually buy prints....after all, digital photos are fine, but nothing beats a physical photograph. We take all of the orders, print the photographs, mat them on high quality museum grade matting, and protect them in polybags (which is really just fancy talk for a protective wrapper...a photo condom if you will). The photos will be $17 for a 5x8 print and $19 for a 8x10 print. No matter what the size, you walk away with a cool $5 for every photo sold on the site. Obviously, we would love to pay out $17 and $19 to the artist...but we have invested a lot in the quality of the prints and the materials we are using - we're bringing the photo back dressed in a tux, not in sweatpants and a pocket protector. Plus, we're good capitalists and need a bit of money to keep Yaperture moving onto bigger and better things. After all, the bigger audience we have, the more money you make.

We are of course open to all questions and feedback that you have. Our pitiful FAQ page has to be filled up, for example...so lay any questions you have in the comments below or send us a quick note and we'll get back to you lickity split.