Artists and content producers may now make a good living mainly by working with businesses. But it’s not simple for artists to get in touch with brands, and businesses trying to uncover fresh or specialized talent often struggle. VSCO, a picture editing software, is aiming to tackle this issue for its primary user base, professional photographers, by launching a new marketplace named VSCO Hub, which aims to connect them with businesses.
VSCO’s platform is similar to that of other social media sites like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, which already provide creator markets to allow companies to find and work with content producers.
Eric Wittman, the CEO of VSCO since last September, compares the new gateway to LinkedIn. The VSCO Hub is virtually identical to LinkedIn. By nature, brands can quickly locate and establish contact with individuals for their initiatives, he told Eltrys. 
Photographers will need to subscribe to the $59.99 Pro plan, which has more than 160,000 members, in order to use VSCO Hub. To help companies focus their search for photographers, the site provides parameters like area, category, pricing, and availability.
A neat marquee function on the site also allows creative directors to submit a reference picture and look for photographers whose portfolios could have similar work.
Because VSCO does not receive a portion of the project fees because it acts only as a connecting layer.
According to Wittman, marketers spend several hours on Google or Instagram looking for photographers whose work aligns with their creative vision, and he attributes the lack of discoverability in the photographic community to social network algorithms.
Due to the evolution of social networks and their algorithms, it can be challenging for photographers to find potential clients. He stated, “We chose to create VSCO Hub because we saw the need for our photographic community.”
VSCO also wants to use AI to improve its search. Wittman said the platform would soon include a function that allows marketers to submit text searches and retrieve photos using semantic search, which the firm is testing internally. VSCO will add additional criteria to help businesses focus their searches.
Like many other platforms, Wittman and VSCO believe that AI will work to support artists rather than to replace them. The CEO plans to develop more AI-powered solutions to assist photographers in their processes.
Notably, Facetune creator Lightrick’s LTX Studio and Sequoia-backed Visual Electric assist artists with ideas and process focus. Wittman thinks creatives will focus more on honing AI’s abilities in ideation than in production.
