Starter Kit. Idea 78 of 500. Cluster 4
Photographers for hire at ticket offices, by the hour
The mechanism, from the book
An app that tells people what is happening tonight converts a day visit into a 2-night stay.
The first step
Stand near a busy ticket office for a weekend with a good camera and a card showing your hourly rate, and offer to photograph visitors for an hour of their visit. Deliver the pictures that evening by link. Hours sold, and groups recommending you to other groups, are the proof.
- Who pays first
- Couples and families who want photographs of themselves together rather than selfies, delivered the same day.
- What leaves today
- Every visitor wants good photographs of the visit and takes poor ones; a local photographer earns from a need nobody serves.
Ask first
- Central Cultural Fund. Ask whether photographers can work at their ticket offices and on what terms.
Check before you spend
That the site's managers allow paid photographers there, that guests agree how photos are used, and how payment and delivery of photos work.
Find out these three numbers
- How many visitors a day would hire a photographer?
- What will a visitor pay for an hour with a photographer?
- How quickly must photos be delivered to please a guest?
A comparison from the book
Sigiriya. Chapter Five
"At the ticket office, a photographer you can hire for an hour."
The book wants a photographer at the ticket office, ready to climb with the visitor.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.