Art-photographers
vs.
stock cliches

5 art photographers take on stock photo cliches

Stock photography is a massive industry that involves the most creative people on Earth: photographers who produce content and designers who use visuals. It changes quickly and is always on top of new trends in photography and design. So how is it that we still see an enormous amount of outdated, stereotypic and dull imagery around us?

Stereotypes thrive in visual culture and the reason for this is laziness. It is much easier to follow cliches and stick to standard interpretations. For example, the portrayal of a businessman in a suit. It would take some more reflection and thought to capture a businessman (or woman) in a more imaginative way.

We asked 5 talented photographers from different genres to re-invent the most common stock cliches: a woman with salad, a happy family, a business meeting, a party, a lady shopping and the concept of a sprout. They had 1 day, up to 6 models and a couple of locations to produce their stories. Here is what they came up with.

Portrait and landscape photographer

Roman Pashkovskiy

Roman has shot for Kovalskaya, Sadochok, Kyivstar, Pepsi, Lexus, Lipton, Petcube, Fedoriv, Bird in Flight, The Village, Uklon and many others. He's also collaborated with Vogue, ELLE Ukraine, Marie Claire, Esquire, Forbes, and Harper's Bazaar. Portraits of Jamala and Dmitrii Shurov made by Roman Pashkovskiy were used for album covers for "Podikh" and "Take Off" respectively. Currently, Roman Pashkovskiy is exploring the theme of interaction of humans and nature, shooting mostly urban landscapes.

I imagined this project as a sort of a fight against cliches. Stock photography is, after all, mostly cliches; a collection of stereotypical images which are dictated by the market. There are definite rules to the game, algorithms and particular types of execution. The opportunity to rethink this aspect turned out to be really useful. For me personally, it has given me a chance to look at the construction and execution of my work in a new light. In a very short period of time, I was able to achieve something which also opened up my horizons in a different way.

Woman and salad

Food should not only be delicious, but also beautiful and I've shown both of these sides in creating a dish here.

Shopping

In our region, many buy products at the market. Work days don’t give us the chance to do mass purchases. It’s work to home, home to work… When the weekends come around, people come out into the light, dress up and go to the market. It’s a world of its own.

Business meeting

A person burns out at work and doesn’t see the world surrounding him. Work is like slavery in a sense.

Party

An office party in a company where a woman works in predominantly male workforce, and most of them men are married. Some of the men are definitely thinking about women as a sexual object but we don’t know who exactly and an office party always reveals these thoughts.

Happy family

Father and son, a fragile creation and an adult man. This story about closeness and authenticity of feelings is about the moment during which a child learns about the world together with his father, behind his strong shoulder.

Art photographer

Polina Karpova

Polina lives and works in Kharkiv. She studied at the Kharkiv Academy of Art and Design. She's a member of Ukrainian Photography Alternative. She's been in several personal and group exhibitions in Ukraine and abroad. She works on a freelance basis as a costume designer and stylist for musical projects and Ukrainian theatre productions.

When I found out that the project was going to be shot in a big studio, I immediately imagined that I would find myself in an analog of Hollywood pavilions where characters would run around with their makeup to and fro. My expectations actually came true.

In 4 out of the 5 photo shoots, I was taking pictures of my favorite model and my friend Yaroslava, the heroine seen throughout most of my portfolio. In general, I just added someone I knew well as a character, used my tactics for composition. In general, this project has given me the feeling of a child who was taken to the toy store where any toy can be yours. I completely submersed myself in the role of a stock photographer.

Party

In the shoot with a party there is an introvert character, tired of the event.

Shopping

An awkward but at the same time beautiful composition of a tired shopoholic that has come back home falling off her feet.

Woman and salad

I went ahead with one of my favourite methods of absurd arrangements.

Sprout concept

I decided to add some aesthetics to the image of a typical gardener.

Business meeting

The shoot with a conference, in my opinion, is the most classic one in stock photography which is why I wanted to consciously portray a boss with two office minions, not particularly inventing anything of my own here.

Fashion photographer

Max Finogeev

Max lives and works in Odessa. He has been pursuing photography since 2009. His main direction with commercial photography is fashion. After a course in conceptual photography in 2015 with Roman Piatkovka, he started actively pursuing contemporary arts. Winner of "Photographer of the year 2016", the first Ukrainian contest of mockups of 2016 photo books, Non Stop Media VIII 2016 festival. The final project, "Season Closed", started in the first round of Bird in Flight school, was shown in 2017 at a personal exhibition in Odessa's museum of western and eastern art.

There were 5 different stories, 5 photo shoots and one day to shoot (around 10 hours). I set up 5 different experiments and felt a bit like an idea generating machine. During this stream of ideas, I realized that I physically won't manage to work out each idea and execute it so I would be happy with it. That's why when I look at the results of the photoshoot, I perceive it not as something done and finished but rather an example for future developments and concepts.

My main approach was my wish to step away from the literal decisions which are kind of provoked by the main theme. For me, it was important to find a fitting metaphor that would accurately reflect one (not always positive) side of the phenomenon.

Woman and salad

Integrating the salad is an element of an abstract artwork. Isolated lips help focus on this idea.

Party

This scene is about congratulating a friend on their birthday on social media. Balancing between 2 channels of communication, online and offline, you can easily miss how everything comes down to dry exchanges with GIFs and smileys. In this context, I remember a familiar expression, “a human needs humans” from Tarkovsky’s film “Solaris”.

Sprout concept

To grow a lemon and use it as part of the salad dressing which the woman in the first scene will end up eating. In general, the ordinary phrase “squeezed like a lemon” became a metaphor for hard work, as opposed to the work of the managers in the second scene. I want to note that that it is not only about physical work but also intellectual.

Shopping

A reference to the deliberate and bright pop art which first started to criticise the mass consumer society. Behind the screen of flat forms, you want to make out the person and not his acquisitions.

Business meeting

Initially the idea came down to translating an image of communication in a business environment. The characters, to be understood by their fellow colleagues, have to express accurate and clear thoughts as simple geometric forms. The addition of balloons on the scene with managers formulates another idea of negotiation - it becomes insignificant talks. Office workers come up with inefficient ideas; they pretend to work.

Photojournalist

Ivan Chernichkin

Ivan is a Ukrainian photographer currently living in Bojarka. He studied artistic photography at the Film Institute at the University of Culture. From 2004, he has been working as a photojournalist and has been published in New York times, Daily Telegraph, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as well as in magazines such as Vogue, Russian Reporter, Ogoniok and Vokrug Sveta.

I'm a documentary photographer. The opportunity to take on a completely different role is really important to me. During the realization of this idea, just as my work with personal projects, I mostly watched the models and directed them.

The photographs that I have taken for this project are to some extent a test for the audience. In every one of the shots I have taken, there is a reference to famous works of art or the works of famous photographers.

Party

Sprout concept

Business meeting

Shopping

Woman and salad

Nude photographer

Maia Iva

Maia Iva is a 21 year old photographer and model from Kiev. She started photographing long before she started studying at Victor Marushenko's course at the Bird in Flight photo school. She mostly works with nude photo shoots and self portraits. She's a feminist, and has a strong stance against objectifying a woman's body in photography. As a founder and curator of art group FABRIKA, she's been in more than 20 exhibitions.

Previously, I've never had the opportunity to work with stock photography so this project was my first experience. Initially I was a little scared that I may be misinterpreting the genre and will create something very far off from the desired outcome. In the end, I tried to make my lack of experience into an advantage and during the creation of my shots I moved around instinctively. It is very interesting to see the photo shoot interpretations of other photographers - there were so many unusual artists here.

In the process of creating the piece according to my interpretation, I worked more with close associations and direct interpretations. I think this was because my initial theme, which included a naked body, wasn't possible, and I had to dig a little deeper.

Sprout concept

This is a self-portrait and it is about the unification of a person and nature. Has it ever seemed to you as if flowers are about to grow out of your ears, hands and toes? I feel like I'm in a permanent process of transforming into a plant. Incorporating the soil the way I did during the photoshoot, I probably sped up this process.

Party

In this shot, the objective was to create the most believable and alive scene. To photograph fake, staged shots with lots of smiling would have been a big miss. When working with party scenes, I pay attention to things like movement and facial expressions. Also, the shot includes a BDSM attribute as a reminder of the fact that parties can be quite versatile and we shouldn’t judge.

Shopping

I really don’t like intolerance. People are too quick to judge others, less ordinary individuals. The shot shows a woman which appears to be dominating; she’s a queen with her sexual preferences. She is also capable of taking up a high role in any serious sphere and her sex life is only of her concern or her and her partner/s. No one has the right to interfere into the personal life of another.

Woman and salad

I’m a vegetarian, which is why the topic of eating salad wasn’t too obvious or boring for me. This is why the salad was integrated into the shot as part of the woman’s body, as a symbol of harmony between nature and the human body.

Share the story:

Art-photographersvs.stock cliches

Art-photographers
vs.
stock cliches