Do you get frustrated with the laughable photos you find when doing photo research? Then you’ve noticed there are many problems with stock photo sites. Typically, the photos are shot for advertising or corporate collateral and not for eLearning, training slides, education and presentations.
Until publishers and photographers understand that an important segment of their customers require photos that seem realistic, we’ll have to suffer through futile searches and wasted time.
For some people, the solution is to shoot original photos for every project. But many of us don’t have the time or budget for lots of photo shoots. For some you just have to fix the best photos you can find. That’s why you want to Unstock Stock Photos for eLearning and Slides.
So here are 21 reasons why most stock photos sites make me cry. I could write 50 more reasons, but no time—I have to get back to searching for the right photo.
- Most stock photos feature people at work who are ridiculously happy. (How much fun can it be to hand someone a folder?)
- Most of the models look directly at the camera instead of performing an action. (What was the photographer thinking? )
- I have to spend hours in Photoshop covering up extreme cleavage, so clients will think the photos are appropriate for the workplace. (Maybe they confused the work shots with the nightclub shots?) Note: You can use Photoshop’s cloning tool to replicate the fabric texture.
- There is not enough diversity in age, race and ethnicity. (See next.)
- I have to regularly swap heads and bodies to make my courses sufficiently inclusive. (Having to put new heads on different bodies is creepy.)
- There are too many unrealistic photos of women at work in stiletto heels. (Their feet must be killing them by now.)
- There are too many unrealistic photos of men wearing slick suits and ties. (Have they never heard of business casual?)
- Too many people have extremely neat desks in spotless white rooms. (Has anyone heard of using props?)
- I think they may use 16-year-olds to play the part of adults. (I guess you can pay them less.)
- The very inexpensive tier of photos are often the size of a postage stamp. (Why bother even selling these?)
- There are too many photos of people shaking hands and giving out business cards. (The world isn’t one big conference, people!)
- When I search for illustrations, I get people with no faces. (What planet did they come from?)
- All carpenters and electricians wear yellow hard hats. (Not everyone works in a construction zone!)
- All healthcare workers, including nurse’s aids and technicians, have stethoscopes around their necks. (Even doctors don’t necessarily go around with stethoscopes all day.)
- Everyone is holding an iPad in a hallway. (We know you’re not doing any serious work with that iPad.)
- Large groups of people crowd around monitors smiling or looking shocked. (Do they ever get anything done?)
- Computer monitors and flip-charts always show financial graphs. (Not everyone works in sales.)
- People at meetings look thrilled by the speaker. (How unrealistic is that!)
- There are too many people holding large white blank cards. (Have you ever seen anyone holding a sign at work?)
- All newspapers are folded to the financial page. (Not all people are fascinated by stock market fluctuations.)
- All adults over 80-years-old spend their days attending picnics and smooching. (I can’t wait!)
I’m not the only one who finds problems with stock photo sites. Here are some others.
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These are hilarious…and so true. I work in home care marketing, and the same images tend to get used over and over again. We’ve been really emphasizing using original photography as often as possible!
Thanks, John. Looks promising.
Great article, we’ve all been there. Check out http://www.upicm.com The images are not the usual stock photo stuff and terms of use are great – no attribution required and free for commercial use too.
Hi Cyndy,
I have a list of stock photo sites here: https://theelearningcoach.com/resources/stock-photo-sites/ but depending on what you are looking for, they might still make you cry. The best ones are those that are geared to eLearning and those keep getting better. eLearning Art and the eLearning Brothers.
Connie
So this article was written over 2 years ago. Does anyone have good news about a new, reasonably priced stock art photo site for elearning that doesn’t make us cry ?
I think the main thing with stock photography, or any sort of advertising, is that the photo should always enhance the product, but should not take center stage. The photography should not be so distracting that it is actually the main event. I believe that’s the point I was trying to convey in the acting/movie comment….that if the acting is so obvious and transparent, we often lose sight of what it is trying to actually bring to the forefront. A fine line, I guess. Blending. Oh, but now I ramble! Have a glorious day, all.
Oh, I do understand, Connie. I have tried to “get into” the whole stock photography thing for different reasons, been (mostly) rejected, been accepted, been rejected again, but I find it so stifling…still, I hold out hope for this type of photography. I have so much to learn! I think the main thing with art, of any kind, is to maintain an open mind. I’m trying…I’m trying really, really hard 🙂
Hi Carol,
Thanks for your input. That’s awesome that you (or others with you) use only pure and real photography. I do photo shoots at times, but often have to resort to stock for a variety of reasons. Thus, I spend a lot of time crying 🙂
Best,
Connie
Totally agreed on so many of these points. It’s really funny…as we get older, so many of these “stock” shots are so transparent. It’s like bad acting in a movie. You don’t follow the story line because the acting is so lousy. I think the main issue for me is the lack of diversity, as stated in many of the comments. So many of the stock is repetitive, boring and plastic. While it may pass for the twenty-somethings, I guess you have to live a few years before you can see through the “pitch”, but, as for me, I love true, pure and real photography and I don’t join stock sites because I refuse to have my creativity trapped in a mold. Great posts! Thanks for the discussion.
Hi Esta,
Some of the sites, like ThinkStockPhotos, have an “Exclude Nudity” filter that works moderately well. You can come here to vent about it anytime you want. 🙂
Connie
EVERYTIME I look for a photo everyone is half naked. I can’t take it anymore and I have looked at about 30 sites & they all have the same pictures. I do not get it?? I agree with everything you said. Just looking for normal photos that should be common. Why aren’t they there? When I was looking for simply a person walking, I get business men walking in my photo search so apparently only business men know how to walk. Not everyone in the world works at a corporation…….ughhhhhhh. It is such a waste of time…
Great, Rajeev! Let us know when your site is up and running. Best of luck with your ideas.
great discussion!!I am in the process of starting a stock photo site. When I read your comments, i was amazed that I was had the same concept of having more realistic pictures. I thought it would be a niche market.
I create and teach online courses for public high schools, and the stock photos I look through are, for the most part, cheesy and laughable when used with a teenage audience. Smiling, beautiful, white students who look thrilled to be academically engaged? Really? Not to mention, there is a shortage of variety when it comes to photos of teenagers — take a look: they almost all look the same, page after page.
It’s OK to find one or two photos presenting happy students, but more of them should be emotionally neutral and realistically engaged with a typical task, with other students, or with a teacher. Photographers need to spend a few weeks in high schools and study how real students dress, stand, and interact.
As for looks, why is it that when stock photographers occasionally manage to include a variety of races, the models are dressed and groomed as if they’re white? They come across like racial tokens, usually only one or two among a larger group of white models (which makes it more obvious that they’re added for political correctness rather than for realism).
And consider age groups: Even the torn-knee jeans on the teenage models look crispy-new and contrived (And many of the fashions overall are out of date as well as unauthentic). Elderly people look like they’ve just been to the barber or beauty shop. Everyone in an office wears a suit… come on! We need an assortment of ages, races, fashion, and body types — models who are physically realistic, dressed the way they would dress in everyday life, and not as obviously posed.
The few photos that show a wider range of emotions, such as anger, surprise, boredom, etc., exaggerate the portrayal to the point of creating a caricature with overdone gestures and facial expressions. It’s impossible to believe them. And, as mentioned in #2 in the post, why is everyone looking at the camera as if the viewers are close friends? I don’t know these people!
As a result of all of these shortcomings, I end up using photos of animals quite often. A hand-drawn dialogue balloon on a droopy basset hound or surprised cat go much further to appeal to students without insulting their intelligence.
Hi Ian,
Funny and so unusual! Thanks for the link.
Connie
Hi Penny,
Yes, you never know what search term will show up soft porn on these sites, even with “exclude nudity” enabled!
LOL!!!! As usual, Connie, you’ve echoed my (ranting) thoughts… Because of everything you said in #’s 1-11 & 13-21, I’ve opted to use the #12 Gumby-like people. No face on a white background is better than a happy, perky, 16-year old model pointing to a pie chart with dollar signs!
Even if illustrations and photos that instructional designers could use did exist, I’m not sure the search functions of the stock photo sites would allow us to find them. Recently I was searching for images to represent different types of participants; for “know-it-all” the results were very close to pornographic! Who knew?
Thanks again for the great post. Penny
For a visual take on this see: http://stockingisthenewplanking.com/ where people replicate the stock photos with their own version and upload them. It certainly highlights how ridiculous the originals are.
Ha! Great points. Yes, why don’t they group the models. I think iStockPhoto has an option for “more like this” or something like that and they cluster them lower in the screen. BTW, for one person in a variety of poses, see the eLearning Brothers link in the article.Thanks for chiming in, Holly.
Best,
Connie
Great points. How about character sets? I have to spend hours to search through photos to find several poses of the same character or to even find several individuals that have the same style photo. Why can’t they group them? Do they think I’ll buy more if I see something else while I’m on their site?
And what’s the with big head people? They make me laugh and gag a little.
Good for a chuckle, thanks Connie.
Oh no! I think I do that too. And I keep scanning the thumbnails, hoping their not true.
I feel your pain, Kristin.
Hi Hannah,
I like that distinction … appealing can come in all shapes and sizes.
Connie
Love this! I second all of them, especially the “happy people” and the lack of diversity. I’ve wasted so much time staring at the results of a stock image search hoping if I stare harder the images will change. (Kind of like looking at the fridge hoping a meal will magically appear.) No dice.
I couldn’t agree more–beautiful people are never usable! Stock photo models should be appealing, not beautiful.
Hannah
Humorous, but oh so true! 🙂
Hi Kristin,
I agree with all your points! The medical with the no gloves drives me crazy. Glad to make you smile. It’s fun to write something humorous.
Connie.
Not to mention, the people who don’t look like they are unrealistically happy have their hands on their heads!!
Oh, and the medical photos are not useful. EMTs need to put on gloves. Nurses are NOT to wear hoop earrings that touch their shoulders- no matter how cool they may look.
By far the diversity is my biggest issue though!
Thanks for compiling this list- made me smile on a Friday morning!
I hear you, brother. And that 25 year-old could have been 16! Let’s weep together. Thanks, Andy.
Hi Tomasz,
Thanks for your thoughts on this. My viewpoint is that I understand many clients want happy people, but a photo of someone concentrating on work or discussing something intently (as happens in the real world) is not the opposite of happy). It just better captures the realism of the workplace. Well, that’s my two cents … thanks for yours 🙂
Best,
Connie
Hah, what a great post! So true. However clients always want to see happy and smiling people in their courses.
ugh, i just went through this for some eLearning I was building. How about just some neutral expressions? How about wearing clothes that fit? I had the hardest time finding someone who could represent senior management that either wasn’t wearing a 3 piece suit or wasn’t 25 years old.
Hi Cathy,
Yes I think there is. Any entrepreneurs listening?
Great list! Perhaps there’s a market here for realstic stock photos? Interesting idea for a company…
Hi John,
Yes, iStockphoto is probably a little better than some of the other ones that are more geared toward advertising. Funny about the client complaining about mess. I can imagine that would bother some people. What about a few props, neatly placed?
Connie
Hi Sam,
Yes, it seems like there could be a big market for more serious photos. I too often work on serious subjects. I often have to use the term “serious” in my search. You CAN find the same model in a series of photos though — see the link to the eLearning Brothers in the article.Thanks for your input.
Connie
I do think there’s a tremendous market for stock photos where people have a normal range of emotion and expressions (sad, angry, etc.). We create a lot of training on serious subjects (health, crime, etc.) and the big smile stock photos are impossible to use. It would also be nice to see the same model in a series of photos.
This is a constant problem for e-learning projects but I have to say that sites like iStock are a lot better than the Gettys of old where they charged £250 minimum. We could still do with an authentic or realism switch so that searches return people and situations that look like some actual work is being done. There is a fine line though – one recent client complained that some pics we had found on iStock were too messy!
Glad I could vent for you, Nigel. It was fun.
Love it! Just spent a few hours looking for a few images. Search function on the image sites are not that good either.
Hi Jan,
Great addition! Varied body types.
Connie
I fully agree with the always happy people. Is no one concerned about anything? And I would add (or stick it in with #4):
21. Everyone looks like a model. What happened to diverse body types?