EXPOSED: Stock Photography Models
Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 1:10PM
Doug Eymer in Customer Experience, Design Gone Bad, Design Tools, Eymer Design, Fail!, Graphic Design, Photography, Stock Photography, graphic design, stock photography

Online posers, are secretly slinking within the underbelly of today’s graphic design profession.

This morning, I received an invitation to join the American Association of Retired People. 

I am sorry, but with the shape of American business today, despite me being a (young) half century old, retirement is not an option—at least for the future. Stop teasing me!

To make things worse, following a little digging and fact-checking, I found that the pleasant looking middle-aged male featured on the e-mail invitation was a– (long pause) stock photography model.

This hired mercenary has exceeded in making a career out of playing a two-dimensional mannequin. One minute, he is hawking AARP memberships, the next minute he is pushing anti-itch cream, sparkling chardonnay, or a new retirement community. 

To the casual observer, this meat puppet (we’ll call him Bob), may induce memories of a close friend or acquaintances. “Wait, I think that I know this person.”  How about, “He looks just like me, and if he has decided to buy used reconditioned bungie-jumping equipment, why can’t I?”

Consumers, wake up! Bob is a fraud! He is leading a highly questionable lifestyle–under a multitude of identities. One minute he is stock photo 1657611 “close-up of a happy age man,” and the next minute– stock photo 1559302 “close-up of the senior business man with his colleagues standing in a line behind him.”

For us, we must seek the truth in advertising and marketing. For Bob, it must be tough to go through life as something between a coat rack and a plant stand. – Doug.

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