Adventures in Stock Photography Land

Ah, stock photography — it’s both bane and blessing for designers. While it may often be bland, generic, cliched, and all-too-obvious, there are times when stock photos are absolutely necessary, times where they can even salvage a project.

Back in the day, you had to leaf through massive books to find that perfect photo of business executives shaking hands, of a smiling woman wearing a headset, or of some cute kid doing whatever it is cute kids do in Stock Photography Land. Not so anymore, thanks to the Intertubes. Now, millions of handshake photos are just a few keystrokes away.

Of course, there’s still no guarantee that you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for. In fact, it’s more likely you’ll spend most of your time wading through crap photos — and possibly seeing a few surprises along the way.

Case in point: Earlier today, one of my co-workers was searching for photos using the term “obstacle course,” which seems fairly straightforward. And yet, for some reason, the website also decided to throw in a couple of photos of condoms, and best of all, a photo of — wait for it — lions doing the naughty.

Our best guess is that the site’s fuzzy logic decided that “course” could also be referring to “intercourse” and so responded accordingly. Given that we were in an office environment, though, we decided against testing that theory any further.

Besides, you really only need to see one photo of lions knocking boots and you’re pretty much set for the rest of the day.