If you cringe every time you look at a stock photo then we have just found your new hero.
You know the kind of pictures we’re talking about: couple walking down the beach at sunset, cookie-cutter kids smiling with cookie-cutter parents, man walking purposefully with a briefcase, beautiful woman laying in a hammock etc. etc.
An American Art Director, who goes by the name of The Stock Photobomber, has had it with awkward, posed, ‘the sun shines out of my ass every day’ stock photographs and decided to take action by “photobombing the sh**t out of them.” And we approve.
He targeted the kind of photos that magazines, websites and advertisements use everyday. Photos like this:
The Stock Photobomber has started a project that adds a bit of reality to these terribly forced and unrealistic images – by inserting himself in to them.
Like here:
On his website, The Stock Photobomber says he has been forced to look at more stock images than any human should have to – he has been working as an art director for an advertising agency for 20 years: “If I had to guess, I probably viewed some 845,742,923,012 images…but that may just be how it felt.”
Stock photos that change the way the world sees women.
“I experience the same uncomfortable feeling I have when my bank teller asks me with a forced smile, how my morning is going…It’s not simply [that] the teller’s greeting…[is] fake, it’s how hard they pretend they’re not – that’s what really gets under my skin. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d rather have the bank teller say to me, ‘Fuck you asshole, give me your deposit’,” he explains on his site.
“That’d be kind of harsh and he’d probably get fired, but you know what, at least it’d be real.”
This is what women are…according to stock photos.
The genius behind the project used Photoshop 6.0 (and his “own raw emotion”) to insert himself into a whole load of pictures. And the results are LOL.
(Story continues after gallery)
Before and after the photobomb.
Is this the start of a revolution against stock image? The world can only hope.
How do you feel about stock photos?
Check out more of the Stock Photobombers work on his and pages.
Top Comments
The galleries generally don't work on my phone.
They don't work on my computer either (Macbook) The thumbnails are there, but the main picture is the size of my pinky fingernail. On all the articles since the new website changes. Just thought I would let you know. :)
We are working to fix this issue. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Thanks for your reply!
They were fun :)