SMS messaging creates new business opportunity

The business started when windsurfers asked Metcalfe for photographs she had taken of them during a session. “I used to take pictures of windsurfers on the beach for pleasure. Lots of guys used to ask if I could take one of them and a website seemed like the easiest way to view and sell the photographs. From there the idea of taking photographs of anyone sailing at the beach took off and Cape Sessions was born,” said Metcalfe.

Cape Sessions grew as it regularly covered and uploaded photographs of the airs, off-the-tops, and adrenal antics of windsurfers reveling in the waters off Cape Town’s south easterly windswept beaches. Digital camera in hand, Metcalfe would seek out windsurfers as they traveled from beach to beach in their search for the eye of the wind.

In late 2007, Cape Sessions introduced an SMS location alert service location alert service has enabled me to take photographs of windsurfers who want their picture taken on a certain day. Cape Sessions is now able to convert more image views on the website into actual purchases from windsurfers who were sailing during a session I shot at a beach I had selected.”

Turning a passion for windsurfing photography into a business is no easy feat. Metcalfe has managed to grow Cape Sessions as a business model majoring on new technologies, adding an innovative new SMS service to better target customers for her digital photographs.

Cape Sessions’ has partnered with BulkSMS.com, a Cape Town based messaging company, to provide the SMS location alert service.