There’s a big difference between professional photography vs stock photos. When you hire a photographer to do a photo shoot, depending on the license agreement you make, you will have original images to use at your discretion. If the rights are exclusive (usually more expensive), you’ll have a set of images that no other entity can use.
Such an original approach will create a unique and authentic feel for your brand. The style of photography will match across these images, which is also key to building your visual identity. The best thing about a photo shoot, especially for an art director, is that the images will look exactly as we want them to look. No settling for a half-right right model or location. You’d be smart to make such an investment in your brand.
Stock photography has its benefits. It is definitely faster to get your hands on stock photos and use them right away — no scheduling, shooting, editing, waiting. It may be cheaper as well — especially if you purchase royalty-free images. But stock has it’s drawbacks too. It looks like….stock photography. You have limited choices. You may not get the exact right expression on the correct age and gender of model in the exact right position in a relevant setting. You might have to settle for not-quite-right. More importantly: this can make your brand look generic. Another major drawback of stock is that if you don’t purchase exclusive rights to an image, there’s no guarantee your customer hasn’t seen that particular image on another brochure.
Hopefully it won’t be for a competitor!
In short, a photo shoot will give you better images — more relevant, quality guaranteed, exclusive use. And a photo shoot is not necessarily more expensive. If you need a lot of images, it might actually be less expensive overall to hire a photographer to do all of them rather than purchasing one by one from a stock website.
This article was taken from a part of The Importance of Using Professional Photography. Read the original article here.