The Case Against Stock Photography for your company: GUEST POST - from a top Toronto Corporate Headshot And Event Photographer
Stock photos permeate our web experience today. Websites, PDF downloads, and all those marketing one-pagers are filled to the brim with the classic business man, woman on a conference call, and generic product shots. And while there's no question they have a role to play, when it's time to tell your story, don't settle for someone else's photos.
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Consider this the next time you're thinking about zooming over to iStock instead of ringing a local photographer:
Stock photos don't showcase your product. Generic by nature, you'll be relying on the viewer to fill in real details with their imagination.
Stock photography can't capture the exact emotion you're looking to convey. A photo will always illicit an emotional response from viewers - but with your own photography, you're in control of that feeling.
Stock photo sites come with limits on size and usage. This is especially important for any marketing or sales materials - and is something you can stipulate up front when you work directly with a photographer.
Using stock photography means searching and sifting through hundreds or thousands of options. Not only is this time consuming and potentially frustrating, when you work with a photographer you end up with photos you would not have thought of, often with fantastic results.
Ultimately it comes down to control. Stock photos have their place, but you cede ownership of vital creative parts of the process to keyword searches of vast, generic collections of photos. Opting for a photographer for your next project means you can focus on the message and the emotion you want to convey, and you control the outcome.
This is a guest post by my editor, Nikkole Couture, a corporate communications pro who works for Nasdaq. You’ll also find this posted on her LinkedIn and Medium pages.
Toronto Corporate Headshot Event and Branding Photographer and Videographer