Women Laughing Alone With....

Oh, wait. That was earlier in the week. It's so damn hard to keep up anymore.

OK, here's Sad Woman Alone with Ice Cream.

Train of Thought Derailed

You know how it is, or maybe you don't. You're looking for something to spark an idea. Or rather, you've got an idea, but it's vague, and so you're looking for something that will spark it. Flesh it out. Complete it. But the Internet has given us short attention spans. I can't sit through a video that's over a few minutes. Got to move on. Find new stuff. Get nagging questions answered, like, "Is Tim Brando from CBS Sports related to Marlon Brando, because he sure has the fat head like Brando did?" And your team loses badly and so you want to make a cartoon of a father and son and the father will say something to the son like, "Ya know, now that the Gators suck, I expect them to lose and I don't have to beat you and Mommy so badly anymore. C'mon, let's play Black Ops." Or something. As I said, it was a vague idea. You know how it is. Or maybe you don't. And that's when I came upon this page and I loved how the words were almost poetry. And so now Stock Vector is a fictitious band and their new project "Running Black Silhouettes" is getting good press and they're adding dates to their North American tour and pretty soon some telecom will buy the rights to one of their catchy hits for a commercial and then backlash will hit fast and the hipsters who liked them early on will abandon them and before you know it even the middle schoolers think they're stupid. Then they break up and get jobs in retail and people sometimes recognize them and say, "Hey! Weren't you in Stock Vector?" And they're like, "Yeah, but that was a long time ago. Are you finding everything you need?" And then as the one-time fan walks away, finding everything she needs, the former member of Stock Vector hears the kid humming a few bars from the big hit that got them fame and money but also destroyed them. "You know how it is" was catchy as hell, and they caught hell for it.

Perplexing Stock Photo

The incongruities weigh the mind.

One Size Fits All and the Death of Creativity

(Click it for the big picture)

Generic Ad Template

This can work for your financial advisory business, insurance outfit, or consultancy of any sort. It says what you want to say, which is what all of your competitors are already saying. (Click for big)

They Grow Up So Fast (Courtesy of Advertising)

Mas grande

Stock Photography Fail

When you're shooting stock images and you want to portray "doctors," choose people who look like doctors. Try throwing a woman in there. A minority is quite popular these days.

When you're selecting an image for your own publication, creating an ad that is trying to solicit ads from medical professionals, choose an image that represents your audience, or at least an image that represents your audience's inflated image of itself.

My guess is the intended audience for this ad is not likely to respond to an image of a couple of B-grade, mousse-haired male models. Pretending to be doctors. These chumps have that air about them that says, "I'm going to be a huge deal someday." They will wake up in ten years to the suicide-inducing realization that they are being cast in ED commercials because they have that "impotent" look.

Oh, and can I have a couple of alternate headlines here? Your first clever instinct may not always be your best one.

They Always Die in Threes

No, they don't. They always die - and people start counting again after three.


The fine ghouls of Google, in association with LIFE's photo archive, have updated the Google Image search page to prompt your searches for recently deceased celebrities. They know what you like.

LOLSUITS

Do an image search on your favorite stock photography site for "businessman" or "businesswoman" and you'll find plenty of those "concept" type photos of a woman standing in the desert with a briefcase or a man running on the beach in a suit. These genius photographers have inspired my latest feature, which may or may not recur here with a sporadic and completely random frequency.

They Call it "Stock" Photography For a Reason

I am rewriting an old ad. The old ad uses the “plant in hands with a little soil” image. I trust we are changing that, too.

I could go on and on and get all crazy on a rant about lack of creativity and being stupid and using the expected, like a guy climbing a mountain to illustrate a financial services ad or two hands shaking (one white, one black) to show your “client services” page or maybe a smiling woman (Hispanic) with a headset for your “contact us” image, but I’m not going to rant. No. But clicheimage.com is available if you'd like to start a new stock photography company (or a site about stupid ads).

Pet Peeve

Bigger

Stock Photography Mystery

This picture, found on the Bahamas Tourism Site, features an unlikely couple. Here we have a woman of model-quality beauty riding piggy-back on what looks like a balding and sunburned soccer hooligan. Her left middle finger stimulates his right nipple.

Shallow bastard that I am, this messes with my head. It simply cannot be. I would not have paired these two models on a photo shoot and I'm not believing the photographer's/art director's suggestion that they are together. I must find an alternate explanation. I propose the following possibilities:

A) He is her eunuch and she said, "Fetch me from the water"
B) He is the photographer's brother
C) He's enduring a vacation in the "friend zone"
D) He's really, really rich
E) She's drunk and he's a lifeguard
F) They are brother and sister behaving inappropriately for their ages
G) She's a prostitute and he's the client

Your suggestions welcome in the comments, as long as you don't give me some bullshit about "love is blind." Also, women suggesting "he's a catch" will be considered soccer hooligan groupies.

Stock Photography Fail

Staying at a Hampton Inn in Miami, this was my room key, carefully branded by Hilton Hotels Corporation to include the friendly and regional Florida welcome. Nice attention to detail. Notice, however, the image in the middle left, where a license plate on a vintage vehicle cheerfully suggests that I "Explore Kentucky." (Click image if you don't believe me or if you have poor eyes.)

Who knows, maybe it was intentional, in that "You're not just welcome in Florida, you should check out Hampton Inns in Kentucky as well" way.

Office Politics

No, not that kind.

In this episode of Vintage Stock Photo of Old Man Boss and Junior Executives in Training, the boss brings up politics. Probably best avoided in the workplace this year.

Click it for Maximum Offensiveness!

If Anyone Clicked This...

...I'd really be surprised.

While plotting my escape from these States United , I've become momentarily fascinated by the least visited of the three US Virgin Islands , St. Croix. Somewhere in my link-hopping, I encountered this banner ad.

What was the designer thinking? Why grab a not-very-funny stock photo of the stereotypical "tourists" in flowered shirts, laden with multiple cameras, goofy hats and bad sunglasses? Even the ugliest American, the most ignorant tourist, would know better than to look like this. And surely knows better than to click on such an image.

I hope. Maybe I overestimate the sense and smarts of my countrymen.

Weren't You in That Ad for...Everything?

This woman is a very versatile stock photography model. Notice the clear, acrylic braces on her teeth, suitable for an orthodontist’s brochure. She’s also wearing stylish glasses, which I could see as a giant in-store display above Wal-Mart’s optometry section. She appears to be wearing a white lab coat, which enables her able to play the orthodontist, the optometrist, the pharmacist, the dentist, the research scientist and the factory worker who makes processors for Intel at a lab in China. But for some reason, Maronda Homes chose her as the fresh face of…Maronda Homes, where she smiles appreciatively toward their Etch-a-Sketch map of the Eastern Seaboard.

She probably made $20 for the shoot.

World's Most Staged Real Estate Photo

There's a remarkable new community arising in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Where you can choose the way you live, shop and play! Explore our site to learn more about this fantastic community.

While they were careful to include "little girl in wheelchair," I'm having a hard time locating any other minorities they might've crammed into this image that was designed to convey, "Thriving community of activity, with open green spaces and people of all ages."

Oh wait, is that "middle-aged lesbian couple walking dogs?"

One Family's Ruin is Your Opportunity!

My generous local paper's website, alllowing me to search foreclosure listings for FREE! (I went there trying to grab a screenshot of a banner ad in which they failed to Photoshop out the iStockPhoto watermark from the picture they stole. I mean, we've all done it, right? But most of us know to hide the watermark.)

Job Search Stock Photgraphy

My local ad fed uses this image on their job link board. I don't belong, but looking is free, and everytime I've gone there, this little girl playing grownup as she waits for an interview bugs me. Maybe it's the smug way she reads the Wall Street Journal. Maybe it's the possessive way she guards her little briefbag full of important stuff. Maybe it's those military issue shoes and matching socks. Maybe it's her emo glasses. Maybe she represents that young, naïve competitor who is going to seriously underbid me on starting salary. Or maybe I just hate contrived stock photography.

New and Improved - But Not Really

I guess the neighbors complained about the horrendous signage that went up locally. (Previously reported.)

So the Certified Association Management Company decided to "go green" and eco-friendly, changing the red on the sign to a more environmentally conscious blue-green.

Now, if we could get rid of Divorced White Mom, Soulpatch Hipster Guy, Young Hispanic Lady and Faded Black Man in this imaginary quartet of stock photography office staff, we'd be getting somewhere.

They are still, as noted by HighJive on the previous post, Certified Asses.