I asked foaper DuyumDulom to write a piece for our blog. He sent us this lovely story containing his Foap story, great tricks and one of his famous self portraits. You’ll see what I mean after reading this post!
Namaste, Hej, Hola, Hello, Konnichiwa, Merhaba, Salam to foapers all around the world. I started writing this piece about 3 months back when our dear Madelen first requested me to write about my experience with Foap but fell asleep every time I started writing. I think I’ve a newfound respect for all the writers/bloggers out there. I have had such a wonderful experience with Foap, and Madelen is so sweet, I decided it’s only fair that I give back to the foap community. So here I am. I am Duyum Dulom, the king of foap (Yes! I just gave that title to myself, I like the sound of it).
My photography interest if I’m to be honest perhaps started soon after joining Facebook. I am a little bit on the narcissist side (Ok, maybe a little more than little). I realized I can get more ‘likes’ for my picture if it’s shot/captured better. That got me exploring photography which started with tons of photos of myself, another tons of photos of myself, then gradually shifting to nature shots, architecture, street photography and now exploring creative photography which of course involves tons of photos of myself again. Come full circle. . .eh?
I learned of foap when a friend posted an article about Foap on his Facebook page about a year back. I was unemployed then, flat broke and had plenty of time to kill. I thought to myself “there’s no harm in checking out the app”. March 15, 2013 I joined Foap. After few days of using Foap, I knew I wanted to focus on ‘Missions’ coz I needed cash and missions had good cash prize.
My first mission reward came on May 6th 2013, barely a month and half after joining foap for ‘Your secret study spot’ by Magoosh and was awarded 100 USD. I was so thrilled; I started jumping around the house like a little kid in a toy shop. I was like “Damn that was easy, I’m gonna be a millionaire soon”. Little did I know all the disappointments that lay ahead!
Since the May 6th win, I had participated in scores of missions but one by one I lost them all. 6 months pass by and no reward, nada! My biggest disappointment came when I lost the AXE mission “Become an Astronaut”. I really wanted that astronaut suit prize and laughing Buddha knows how hard I tried. I am quite shy of crowd but for this mission, I went out of my comfort zone and jumped in locations where there were lots of crowds. I had body ache that lasted a month from participating in this mission (from all the jumping).
After all the setbacks, I was contemplating quitting Foap and get more serious with my job hunt. Good for me, I have not learned to quit. I might have taken time to achieve my goal but I’ve never quitted in my life. So I continued participating in missions. Rest is history. Between Oct 2013 -Jan 2014, I’ve had 5 mission rewards including the one from Sony and Heineken . . . .also I landed myself a full time job. Sweet! Yeah! And the best of all, I came out a better photographer than when I joined Foap and for that I’m very thankful to Foap.
On a parting note; all the foapers aspiring to be rewarded for a mission, I cannot stress this enough, read the full description on the mission page. Try to understand what the mission is about. Take multiple shots under different scenarios for each mission. If it’s a picture of a person, try to keep the expression as candid/natural as possible. Do not worry if you don’t have a DSLR camera, all my competition win came from a point ‘n shoot Canon camera. It’s ultimately the content of your picture that matters.
Lastly, be kind to one another and spread LOVE.
Photo by DuyumDulom.
