Caroline Shipsey
Photography

Wednesday 15 December 2010

Now I Want to Buy Stock Photos

Buy stock photos? Me? It's strange how things turn out - a year ago I wouldn't have considered myself to be in the market for cheap stock photos, but here I am scouring iStock and Dreamstime looking for images to use on my website.

I've always been against the principle of royalty free stock photos. I considered it akin to selling my soul to the devil, and yet here I am queuing up to buy stock photos.

I'm only looking at the most inexpensive stock photos and I suppose you get what you pay for, but generally the quality is pretty uninspiring. Technically the images are fine but the content is questionable at times and it's hard to find appropriate poses. Mostly I'm looking for images of women in the age range 40 -60 years, but there seems to be a huge gap in the age ranges available - either very young, extremely slim girls/women or mature/senior women with regulation grey hair, glasses and too many wrinkles!