Pictures worth taking. Pay only for the ones you love.

The most technically distinctive feature of the entire build — and a first-of-its-kind transaction model on Sharetribe. Instead of a customer creating a booking, the photographer creates a Session Invite directly from the platform after completing a shoot. The invite captures the customer's first name, last name, email, a personal message, and session description. The platform sends a branded email to the customer with a unique session link — bringing them onto Sihmo for the first time, often minutes after their photo was taken. This entirely replaces Sharetribe's standard listing-browse-book flow with an outbound, photographer-driven onboarding mechanism.

When a customer opens their session link for the first time, a custom GDPR consent step was built into the transaction flow — before the customer can view any photos. The consent mechanism explicitly captures the customer's agreement to have their personal photographic data processed and stored by Sihmo and the photographer, in compliance with European data protection regulations. Consent is logged against the session record. Customers who do not consent cannot proceed — protecting both the platform and the photographer from GDPR exposure across their European markets.

All session photos are uploaded by the photographer to Cloudinary, which handles storage, optimisation, and delivery. Each customer receives access to a private gallery scoped exclusively to their session — no cross-session access, no public listing. Photos are delivered via Cloudinary's CDN at preview resolution, with watermark transformations applied automatically before serving to the customer. The gallery experience is clean and personal — customers see their photos as if in a private digital darkroom.

Cloudinary's image transformation layer was used to apply automatic watermarks across all preview images served to customers before purchase. Watermarks protect the photographer's work during the browse-and-decide phase — customers can evaluate composition, expression, and quality through the watermarked previews, but cannot extract usable images without completing a purchase. On payment confirmation, full-resolution unwatermarked files are unlocked for instant download.

Rather than per-image pricing, Sihmo uses a package model — customers select from tiered photo bundles (e.g. 5 photos for a fixed price). Package options are configured per photographer or per session type, giving the platform flexibility across different shoot contexts and location tiers. Stripe processes the package payment at checkout, and Cloudinary delivers the corresponding number of full-resolution downloads immediately on payment confirmation.

On successful Stripe payment, the customer's selected photo package is unlocked for instant download — full-resolution, unwatermarked files served directly from Cloudinary. The entire post-payment experience is designed to be immediate and frictionless — reinforcing the "if it clicks, you have it instantly" promise central to Sihmo's product positioning.

A custom admin verification workflow was built for photographer onboarding. Photographers apply to join the platform and are reviewed and approved by the Sihmo team before receiving the Sihmo Badge — a visible verification mark displayed on photographer profiles. The badge is the primary trust signal for members of the public being approached by a Sihmo photographer in a public space. Without the badge, a photographer cannot create session invites or upload photos. This verification layer is foundational to Sihmo's ability to operate a street photography business model safely and at scale across European cities.