David Meerman Scott is my new HERO! I love you David for speaking up when nobody else would. So you’re wondering what’s got my panties all in a bunch. STOCK PHOTOS! I’m as guilty as the next person for using a stock photo here and there. [insert cheesy stock photo here]
Yeah I just paid a buck for that image (gotta support the photography community) to prove a point that obviously this guy is having the best damn meeting of his life. No not really but rather to ask the question, “Who is he?” Really…
Who are these young, happy, pretty, multi-cultural people with great teeth and even better hair who hang out with notebook computers in sleek and modern conference rooms on B2B company Web sites all over the world?
That’s what Mr. Scott wants to know and so do I darn it! Why don’t more people and for that matter photographers use REAL people in the world of stock photos.
Why not just use real people on your site? How innovative! Use real employees in a real conference room to represent your employees in a conference room! Damn. Why didn’t we think of that? And use your real customers too.
Photographers let’s all get together and revolt. Let’s go all PJ on the stock photo world. Do you think it would catch on? 
6 Comments at "Who The Heck Are Those People"
What – and put models out of work? The next thing that will happen is clerk Bob taking the photos…
You made me chuckle! I admit I’ve often wondered where those people come from – sometimes they look too fake to be real, if that makes sense. I wouldn’t be surprise if they were painstakingly photoshopped
And probably the real reason people don’t use real employees or real customer is because they’re probably look really bored or really irate
The company I work for (when I’m not doing photography work) has two staff photographers. One for going out to our construction sites to photograph final product, and one for marketing layouts and HQ photography. The latter regularly photographs employees, usually PJ ninja-style when it’s meetings, and the stuff gets used for website postings, or people get there name and photo put up on the 24/7 slide show they have on the displays in our lobby and cafeteria.
I saw an unflattering one of myself up there the other day. I didn’t even have to ask them to take it down by the next day.
They don’t use regular people for the same reason photographers won’t put ugly brides/families on their websites. It just doesn’t sell. Truth be told!
I asked a pastor once why he used stock images in the church promos instead of actual members of his congregation. He explained it in much more graceful terms but the way I interpreted it was, “because you and I see the way they market themselves in church but the community has seen them elsewhere and I don’t know if we want to risk being tied to their brand.”
Beyond that, I think the main reason average looking people aren’t used in advertisements very often is that they don’t actually convey the message, “hey look at us, we’re real”, they convey the message, “hey look at us, we’re average.” Who wants that message tied to their brand?
Remember the microsoft white guy with black hands shot? Photoshopped to suite cultural sensibilities.
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