Last week, Kyle wrote about several websites where church designers can get stock images to use in their projects. I’m not a designer, but I am a creative so I can understand the necessity at times for church designers to use stock photos when the need arises.
As a photographer however, I am not fond of using stock photos for church websites, particularly on the landing page. The people in the photos do not attend that church and it’s not hard to spot a stock photo, even for those who have limited photography skills.
In addition, despite the thousands upon thousands of stock images available, there is a chance of repetition. I know I’ve seen stock photos used more than once (particularly by hosting companies for whatever reason). Chris Barton at ‘Fair Trade Photographer’ identified a stock image that has been used by eleven different companies on their website.
Use images of authentic families from your church on your website.
Images of those who actually attend the church says, “This is who we are” as opposed to, “This is what we want you to think we are” when using stock photos.
This also presents a church with the opportunity to get others involved in church ministry. If the people on your design team (or even if you are outsourcing website design) aren’t skilled photographers it opens the door for volunteers to step forward and help with that ministry.
What do you think? What’s the protocol for using stock photos on church websites?
The photos on our site are stock. I hate them. Want to turn them into originals.
Do it!
And the fact is, there are a *ton* of skilled photographers in the 15-25yr-old range who can put out some very acceptable results, that might not be perfect, but they convey authenticity.
** I specify 15-25 not because 47 year olds can’t take pictures, it’s just that with the price of digital plummeting when we were kids, a dSLR isn’t uncommon for a college kid to have, and college kids take a lot of pictures.
So asking the young-guns to shoot some over the weekend might just take your site to the next level. Thx for writing Jay.
You know, us 35+ people also have access to DSLR’s.
But I get your point and it’s line with what I was saying. It’s a perfect opportunity to have somebody step into ministry.
We don’t use stock for any of our photos on our website. It’s more work but well worth it. We try to do a couple different photo-shoots a year with the students in our ministry to make this happen.
Very cool.
I am a “marketing guy”. A couple years ago, I always defaulted to stock photos for churches I worked with because I was all about quality. I thought it was better to have an “excellent” picture than a mediocre one. I was wrong.
Now I agree completely with you. With the proliferation of digital cameras and many more “artistic-minded” people out there it should be easier to get something your church can use to make the site real. Also, I think people now will trade a lesser quality real shot of real people for the fake stock images of the past.
I remember a while back noticing a happy friendly dude in a photo rotation on the Willow Creek homepage. Later that week I saw the exact photo of the exact same happy guy smiling at me in a JCPenney. It’s probably not something most people would have noticed I guess. But from a branding perspective, that sort of thing runs the risk of pulling the viewer out of the emotion and personality built into the design. At the least we should def be strategic if using stock photos.
I tried to get a simialr discussion about this going over at ChurchTechMatters.com – http://churchtechmatters.com/2009/12/24/to-stock-or-not/ and to be fair we did get a few replies.
The general consensus was for church websites no, but for informational sites (be they church related or not) then yes it was ok.
Some of the other factors to consider in using them (or not) were:
* How photogenic are your members?
* Are any of them on vulnerable lists and need to maintain privacy?
* If building pictures need to be used is yours suitable?
* Do you have the necessary equipment?
* Do you have the experience?
* Do you have the objects you want pictures of?
But in general I agree we shouldn’t be using SP’s on church websites.