Stock digital photography. Have a peek at the MSI and Acer ad images in the link below http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/18/asus-and-msi-have-some-splaining-to-do/ And the comments: <quotes> "I forget where, maybe the Wall Street Journal, but some newspaper had an entire article on companies losing branding quality due to internet stock photo usage (and many companies using the same stock photos). This is pretty common though; I'm not sure why it deserves an Engadget article. Neither company did anything wrong, per se." *** ""License type: Royalty-free" *** "Anyone pr their dog can take a picture of this "quality", suitable for the web, with a $100 camera. I'd do it for a $5. Companies get so tied up with "professionalism" but the standards of "professionalism" change as technology improves. They're stupid to use stock footage when an original photo would have taken any random employee 5 minutes at a school or home." *** I'm not sure which strikes me the most. The fact that the average engadget reader sees professionalism changing based on technology (!) , that they see commercial photography being reduced to a 5 minute operation worth $5 , that they see nothing worthy of comment in a multi-million dollar company using free images for their advertising or that it's so *common* it's not worthy of comment. We have Virgin using images found on flickr, now we have these two companies using free images in what I could only assume are advertising campaigns costing $$$.. I can understand say a one off image of something special found on a royalty free image library or flickr being used in an ad campaign, but we're talking about the marketting of an actual product - a new product, something which in times gone by one would not expect to find in a stock image library. This 'digital revolution' must be saving these companies a fortune by cutting those greedy photographers out of the loop (!) :( </quotes> Karls new photography business model ©: Get the family members together pre-wedding and shoot the heads against a white background (the Red One 12Mp cine cam would be good cheap way to get shots at all angles in one quick smiling rotation), find out where they want their wedding album shot.. Tahiti, the Whitsundays, Rome.. wherever! Head to Flickr or the royalty free image sites and gather the shots then hunker down in the computer room and set to creating the dream wedding packages start at $60 for 12 images! golden days.. k
