In December 2024 we retired the Stockimo app, but we’re still accepting Smartphone photos. You can read the latest update here. If you’re looking to upload your mobile phone photos to ºÚ¹Ï³ÔÁÏyou can sign up here.
This blog article from 2017 has been kept live for archival purposes.
There’s a phenomenon known as If you’re not familiar; it’s a collection of images ridiculing the world of lifestyle stock photography and in particular this recurring theme.
Originally compiled by , over the years it’s had different variations shared over social media, been the subject of memes and also the inspiration behind a . It’s also the subject of derision for it’s clichéd portrayal of women, which is something unfortunately not just isolated to the world of stock photography.
Customer demand
I don’t want to weigh in too heavily on the rights and wrongs of both women (and men) in media and advertising and it’s portrayal of unattainable levels of perfection and beauty. However there is now an appetite for more realistic looking imagery.
There’s also a demand and increase in supply of realistic, female-centric lifestyle stock photography. This is starting to debunk clichés of stock photography and women in stock and also to some extent in media and advertising.
Despite the long list of iconic female photographers and a number of new specialist agencies, collections and individual photographers, there’s still much more work needed in both industries.
The world of successful stock photography is largely driven by trends outside of the photographer’s creativity (it’s rare that the tail wags the dog). If there’s customer demand for the imagery then successful stock photographers can and will supply.
Commercial stock photography vs editorial reportage photographyÂ
For a long time customers have demanded authenticity, more real life, less posed, less woman laughing alone with salad imagery, more real people eating salad, more real women in the real world.
At ºÚ¹Ï³ÔÁÏwe pride ourselves on the depth and breadth of imagery we can offer our customers, but then that presents challenges to both customers and photographers.
The problem is, a real person eating salad in a normal manner, in general does not make for a good photo. In fact people eating any food or doing any number of normal everyday things in a normal everyday manner does not make for a good photo. It certainly doesn’t fit the demand of a commercial stock photography customer.
Bless my parents genes, but my diet, lifestyle choices and bearded weirdness mean consumers won’t flock to purchase a product endorsed by me eating a salad (with or without a kebab).
Creating authentic lifestyle stock photography
A few years ago I spoke to a lifestyle stock photography specialist agency who had an interesting style they described as: “It’s like reportage… but it’s fake reportage“. This to me was a brilliant description of what they produce (amongst other savvy lifestyle photographers).
An instantaneous and a natural look and feel to the work but at the same time a kind of hyper realism, that’s aesthetically alluring. They may be less posed and more ‘real people’ looking, but they’re still models, all released and definitely more likely to sell a consumer a salad than me.
This form of lifestyle photography fulfils the brief and demands of customers looking for more authenticity in their images. It also maintains a higher level of look and feel than real reality. Despite the demand, when initially presented with real world lifestyle imagery, a lot of stock photography customers didn’t like it.
Getting the balance right; real… but not that real
Getting the balance right is a challenge but if the photographer/advertiser can place the consumer within their brand, then it’s also a very clever illustration/sales technique. “This looks like people I would like to hang out with and the kind of stuff I do, maybe I need this product in my life”.
This was one of the reasons behind our interest in mobile phone shot imagery and the development of our . An iPhone is much less imposing than a DSLR which means it’s possible to capture more candid and of-the-moment lifestyle photos. You can get more interesting angles and it’s possible to get shots without too much posing. That is unless you’re using a selfie stick of course!
Tips for realistic lifestyle stock photography using a DSLR
- Use models that look more like your friends and family (or your actual friends and family)
- Find everyday activities and themes and try to avoid stock photography clichés
- Drop the camera to eye level
- Try to go hand-held or use a steady cam tripod
- Break up the “set up” look and feel
- Shoot in amongst people and objects, don’t be afraid of out of focus elements in the foreground
- Use as much natural lighting as possible
- Set a scene and maybe a short storyboard, but then leave model direction to a minimum
- Achieve minimal eye contact with the lens to break down the consciousness of posing
- Basically…. shoot reportage…… but fake reportage
Sometimes images, far removed from reality are just what the customer is looking for. So don’t just write off shooting men/women/children/rabbits laughing alone with salad, but do consider other options and look for trends in-use now. It is possible to capture a photo of people eating and it not look ridiculous.
Female hilarity at healthy foods is not the only strange phenomenon in the world of lifestyle stock photography. Just take a look at The Hairpin’s other collection . It is however not just limited to female models. There are just as ridiculous images of men doing ridiculous things in ridiculous manners, for example, here’s some men laughing alone with salad.
For more inspiration see our Lifestyle category page and keep up with our What Should I Shoot tool to get a flavour of what customers are looking for at the moment.
Also… if anyone can tell us just what’s so amusing about salad, then please let us know in the comments below.