Scoopshot is trying to transform the way companies purchase photos and the way freelance photographers find work. In August, we reported that the startup had launched an app that allows smartphone users to easily sell their photos from their phone. Since then, the company has paid out more than $300,000 to participating photographers, and reports that over 60 of its users have earned more than $1,000 by selling their phone photos (one user has earned more than $23,000)

Now, the service is setting its sights on a different group of photographers: professional freelancers. It has launched Scoopshot Pro, a service that connects photo buyers with photo makers for commissioned projects.
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The British government recently commissioned photographer Simon Roberts to create a public photo collaboration called The Election Project. In short, Roberts is creating documentary-style photography that follows the 2010 UK General election, and he is organizing a website to which people all over the UK can submit their own photographs of local political activities.

Roberts will also be traveling the country for three weeks in a motor home to document the election on the local level, with emphasis on the relationship between politicians and voters.

Community involvement is key to the project. Visitors can submit photos and “vote” (add favorites) for photos via the project’s Flickr photostream. Roberts wrote on the project site:

The General Election is, by definition, a democratic process. Your contributions will add a vital collaborative and democratic dimension to the project. This will undoubtedly be the most photographed election in British history.

Many of the posted public photos have a charmingly amateurish quality to them, a rawness that Roberts says he prefers: “The public’s images will also help to provide an antidote to the more stage-managed photographs increasingly seen of the campaign trail,” the photographer wrote.

It’s a fairly interesting glimpse of the elections thus far. You can see the batch in The Election Project’s gallery – which might take a while to load, since all the photos are currently posted on a single page. Pagination, much? Maybe it’s all in the name of equal representation.

(via The Photoletariat)