Stock Imagery vs. Brand Photography (+ Our Favorite Places to Get Both!)
Just this week, on our Instagram we posted some excited updates happening recently for our team members — including wrapping up some fun client projects, much needed r&r in Hawaii, and our head girl Maddi got engaged! Plus, we started a second business - Clove Studios, a rentable photo and event space in Chicago!
After getting this new studio space already for reservations (which are open now! Click here to check out available dates) we have certainly had brand photography on our minds. In fact, that topic is one of our main motivations for creating this rentable space. We have seen, both personally and for our clients, how having strong brand photography to use on your website, social, and any marketing efforts is key to setting your business apart and catching the eye of your dream customers. This is why we actually offer brand, lifestyle, and product photography within our services! But finding a studio local to MHCS headquarters with the lighting, props, and vibes of our dreams was proving harder than expected. So, we created our own! Clove Studios is now a separate business and project from Madison Hebner Creative Studios, but because our full team of creatives has been involved with its creation, Clove Studios has become a safe haven for photographers, creatives, and business owners of all types located in Chicago.
After our recent time spent sourcing props, soaking in the dreamy golden hour light of the new studio, and finally having a place to complete more photography than ever for our own brand and our clients - we cannot stop gabbing about all things brand photography. So let’s continue that conversation today! Keep reading to find what we’ve learned about stock photography vs. custom brand photography, our favorite tips for using both, and more!
Custom Brand Photography project our team completed for skincare brand Cleanse Apothecary
The Pros and Cons of Using Stock Images
Stock images are professional photos available for download or purchase that can then be used on your business website or social platforms. There are multiple platforms that offer stock photos and some are even free! Others are available for a monthly subscription, or you can pay per photo, but either way you are getting premium content that can level up the look of your brand. There are times when stock photos can be a lifesaver, and we want to talk about those times! As well as discuss when brand photography may be a better fit, depending on what type of products you sell and what phase of business you are in.
Our Favorite Stock Photo Sites
Social Squares — This is one of the newest players in the stock photo game, and they are coming in hot. We love that SS offers a low monthly subscription for access to their entire library of well curated images.
Stocksy — This may be the highest quality option when it comes to stock photos, because of their wide range of creative content rooted in strong art direction. We have found their stock images to be less generic. And though they means it takes longer to source, it is possible to end up with very brand specific and original feeling images. On Stocksy you pay per photo copyright, with the price depending on what image size you want to download.
Unsplash — Probably the most well-known stock photo site, Unsplash offers a wide variety and good search options, and the best part is, it’s free!
Adobe Stock — A go-to for graphic designers and other creative business owners, Adobe Stock is absolutely worth diving into.
Pexels — Another great free stock photo option, we have found it can be easier to source unique and artistic content through Pexels than other free sites like Unsplash.
Creative Market — This is much more than a stock photo site, and is more commonly used to purchase fonts or design templates. But they also have stock photos, and is especially great for sourcing styled stock mockups to show off your graphic design work.
Benefits of Using Stock Images
As we chatted about in this blog post, the level of expertise of photos used on your website and marketing can make or break your customer’s experience. If you’re not a professional, DIYing your brand photography can effect the credibility of your entire business. It’s hard for people to invest in a brand that doesn’t appear to have invested in themselves. This is why, especially for new business owners, stock photos can be a great place to start!
This especially when your start up funds are low, because there are some good free or cost effective stock photo sites. The key is knowing what to search for — Most stock photo sites have extensive search options so you can narrow it down, and the more specific you can get in your search the better. On sites like Stocksy you can actually search by hex code colors, which is perfect when making moodboards. On Social Square and others you search by topic or style. Go into your stock image search knowing what you hope to find, otherwise it’s easy to become overwhelmed with the options.
One of the best search options on most stock image sites is the ability to narrow your search by skin tone, which is amazing for finding more diverse images. If you don’t have the funds to plan a full photoshoot and pay multiple diverse models fairly, see what you can do with stock images. And this way you are still supporting those models for their work, but in a way more that may be more achievable for your business right now!
You can see some example of stock images we used in our branding project for skincare brand Cleanse Apothecary here!
Downsides of Using Stock Images
Because of the more generic nature of stock photos, they only work for a limited about of businesses. Service providers such as social media marketers, accountants, or life coaches can often find lots of stock content that applies to their business. Think photos of a person happily scrolling instagram, or a business owner logging onto a zoom meeting in a brightly lit office. These kinds of images are what fill stock image sites, and they work great for many service providers! However other services like floral design, photography, interior design, or influencer type content creation require custom and original content, to show the businesses actual client or personal work. Because of this, stock images only work for marketing a limited amount of businesses.
That is especially true for product based business. Though there may be some filler type posts on your social platforms that work with stock images, custom photos of your products will be necessary. And keeping those custom product photos consistent with past stock photos you have would be difficult. Instead we would strongly recommend product-based business and most service providers start off with custom brand photography right away to avoid consistency problems in the future.
Even if you are able to use stock photos for your business type, and you spend time sourcing ones that match your branding, there is still the issue or originality. Stock photos are available to anyone, meaning your competition has access to those exact photos. Chances are there is a similar business out there using the same images you are, and that can cause confusion for a customer. Sadly stock photos can never give you the sense of creative originality that a brand needs to truly stand out from anything else out there.
This last downside we want to mention is an important one — Consistent social media marketing takes a loooooot of photos. Especially if you are posting every single day! And sourcing enough stock photos to keep this up is difficult. Especially when you need stock photos that fit your business, are on-brand, and are all consistent with each other. They take a lot of time to source, and then get used up quickly.
But after all these downsides, we have a solution for you. Brand photography can help you avoids all of the cons above, still get plenty of the pros that stock photos offer, plus offers even more benefits for your business! After years of business and working closely with other business owners, we have formed quite the love for custom brand photography. Let’s talk more about why!
Why To Invest In Custom Brand Photography Instead
Don’t worry, the pros we mentioned above still apply to brand photography — you don’t have to DIY your product photos, there are plenty of photographers out there to help plan the perfect custom shoot! You can find the style and price range that works for you. The best stock photos are in investment anyway, so you might as well use those same funds towards a shoot unlike any others. And instead of worrying about spend consumed by searching through endless stock photo sites, you can use that time to plan and execute a photoshoot that is everything you dreamed of. With custom brand photography you can complete control over color scheme, feel, props, diversity, and the story you want your brand images to tell!
And the pros of stock images? A lot of those are solved by opting for a personal brand shoot instead —
You can work with a photographer to craft images that work for whatever type of product you are selling. You can establish your brand voice and feel immediately through your marketing images, and cultivate the emotional experience you want your unique dream customers to have. You can plan exactly how many images you need to stay consistent on your social marketing, and even create a shotlist for your photographer so you end up with exactly the amount of content you need. You can work with one photographer or find similar styles to keep all of your content and future photoshoots consistent and on-brand. And you can confidently stand out in your industry knowing no one else is posting photos like yours.
Scroll through the images below to see examples of brand photos our team has taken for a variety of business and products:
There are other major benefits that only come when you invest in a custom brand photoshoot —
During one shoot you can get all kinds of content shots. Not just basic product photos, but if you plan ahead and style your photoshoot well you can also end up with other types of content from just one shoot, including more “filler shots” for social posts, lifestyle shots using your products, short BTS video footage that makes great reels, ect. Just one well-planned shoot has the potential to get you enough content for months of social marketing. This means you can plan exactly how much bang you’ll get for your buck, making your investment completely worth it. Talk to your photography about how many edit photos you can expect to receive!
Planning a brand photoshoot means you are investing in the creative community around you. You can work with photographers, stylists, and models to help your vision come to life. And working with other creatives this way can help you network, form connections, and build a community that will lead to more business later on. We are big believers in business karma, and supporting other creatives in their business truly comes back to you in the best way possible!
Where to Start
After all this talk, we feel it’s important to mention we are still fans of stock photos. They can be such a useful resource when used correctly! But we also want to recognize that, because of the reasons we mentioned above, stock photos are still the most beneficial when they are mixed in throughout custom brand photos.
We want to make brand photography more accessible to everyone, which is why we include it in our services among our brand design and custom web design! To learn more about working with our studio, click here.
If you are starting a business, feel your business has plateaued, or just aren’t seeing the results you want, your product photography may be top priority. Click here for our latest post to help evaluate if this is the best next step for you!