posted 2007/06/25 at 14:27
For some reason, these past few weeks I've found myself inexplicably bothered whenever I go to a Website and I see stock photography of people being used to advertise something, whether on the Website itself or in an ad appearing on the Website. I'm not sure that it necessarily takes a special skill to be able to identify these kinds of photos -- the too-perfect lighting, the way the models conform way too close to our cultural concepts of beauty -- but recently either there have been a lot more stock photos being used at the Websites I visit, or I've gotten a lot better at picking them out than I used to be. I can't really explain why this would bother me, except that I think I watched a little too much Mystery Science Theatre 3000 when I was younger, and of course whenever one of the old bad films resorted to stock film footage for some scene Joel/Mike and the bots would point it out derisively. (As much as I loved, and continue to love, MST3k, I think that it perhaps made me a little too cynical for my own good.)
It's hardly like I don't understand the rationale for using stock photography, given all of the headaches and fees involved in getting permission from people to use their likenesses in advertising. This is something I had personal involvement with back in my Website design days, and it's something that my father's been dealing with ever since he moved to photorealistic computer-based illustration tools. This isn't even a matter of me being the good liberal here and rallying against Western notions of beauty as inherently patriarchal and encouraging destructive thoughts and behaviours and all of that. What bothers me, I think, is just the fact that the company, through using these stock photos, sends a message out to me that they don't think it's worth the effort to produce their own advertising photos, and instead they're just going to draw from this pool of photos than anyone can use for any purpose. If a company produces its own advertising photos, then honestly I think I'm more likely to buy from them because they're taking the time to produce something for their product, and not just a general audience.
Another problem is that, my memory being what it is, it's hard not to notice when a company starts using the same stock photo that another company's been using for a while. I can remember a few years ago, back in my undergraduate career, when I'd flip through magazines at the campus library I'd keep running into this ad for some dental product that had this woman with blonde, curly hair, blue eyes, perfect smile, large breasts, you know the type. I must have seen that advertisement in at least half a dozen magazines. Then a few months later I was looking at magazines up in the Spectrum office, and I see the same woman, same photo, and at first glance I assume it's an ad for the dental product. However, instead of that, there was this big text box next to her with this woman saying how she wasn't letting her genital herpes get in the way of her daily activities, and I'm sorry, but it's hard not to see something like that and not laugh your fool head off. I think cases like this prove one of the dangers of using stock photography for advertising purposes, and should dissuade other companies from continuing the practice.
I know you've separated yourself from the whole pro wrestling scene, but this is the greatest tragedy in pro wrestling history, Owen Hart included.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=3315501&page=1
Yeah, Jeff called with the news during Countdown last night. My sister's had CNN on all day and has been passing along all the news that's been coming in. Somehow I managed to pass all the other stages in grieving and move straight to anger, and I've kind of been stuck there for about sixteen hours now.
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon