StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Discontinuation Message For Some Weeks

Due to some heavy work this blog is closed until November 15, 2004. Sorry, but sometimes there is no way to do both at the same time: working and blogging.

Fuck Traditional Stock Photography

Digit/Matthew Bath comes up with a Best-of-all-times report: "Reality bites: Stock images used to be a last resort, featuring bland, sanitized models on beaches, or stilted images of world landmarks and national flags. Today, however, stock images are increasingly defining the visual language of designers as they become increasingly edgy" (Link).

The articel is extraordinary excellent, with statements from Carolyn Guidoin, international director of creative photography at Corbis; Gavin Griggs, UK general manager of image library Zefa; Jerry Kennelly, founder and CEO of Stockbyte; Tim Lund, creative director at Digital Vision; and others:

The result was that, traditionally, stock images ended up painting a conservative landscape; one populated with happy, smiley models, with perfect families running across white sands, clad in equally white t-shirts and dresses. In stock images, businessmen always shake hands or talk into a mobile phone, while meetings are populated by silver-haired stereotypes leading an attentive crowd.
[...]
Now, images with an alternative attitude are emerging, dealing with spotty models, businessmen snorting drugs, gay love, guns, and urban grime. They may not have the sanitized appeal of their predecessors – and you certainly won’t find clichéd images – but the fact that stock is getting edgy opens a new creative avenue.

And so are the presented images: "But what if you’re a photographer looking to create images that cutting-edge designers are looking for? Is it simply a case of snappy scenes and leaving out the photo-retouching?"
Answers here.
[© Image tozbuggss]