Erickson Stock
As a designer, it’s already challenging enough to tell a story with your work…before your miniscule budget sends you scrambling for stock art. And a lot of what’s out there only makes your job more difficult. It’s often sterile, silly, and occasionally even creepy: perfectly coiffed, dead-eyed people frozen in the middle of activities that don’t seem to match their participants. That’s because it’s hard enough to take a good, usable picture when you know precisely what it’s going to be used for – and stock-image photographers simply do not.
While those photographers struggle to create shots that are all things to all people, Jim Erickson and his team have done things a little differently with Erickson Stock. Drawing on his 20 years of experience as a top-tier commercial photographer for the likes of Kodak, GM, American Express and others, Erickson has followed the same dictum he always has: tell a story.
This isn’t some touchy-feely nonsense. If a photographer doesn’t help his subjects come together to create a “real moment,” you end up with those awkward, dead-eyed images so prevalent in the stock image world.
Today, with more than 60,000 images and thousands of video clips available for rights-managed, commercial licensing, Erickson Stock has become a popular source of emotional lifestyle and business photography.
Perhaps the best way to really see the difference between Erickson Stock and the rest is by picking up a copy of its most recent inspirational photo book: “Bliss.”
The first difference that jumps right out at you is “mood.” The images in this thick tome rely less on the “smiling person equals happy” formula and more on lighting, surroundings, and occasionally, the downright abstract.
For every smiling couple (even this cliché is tempered by interesting blurs and lighting), there are beautiful golden sand castles on a beach, a middle-age surfer looking wistfully off to sea, and a two-page spread of a tilting windmill lost in a moody field of wheat. That all of these photographs appear in a book labeled “Bliss” gives you some indication of the depth of thought that has gone into their taking.
And what about “telling a story”? The teenage girl in the truck (above) is a beautifully understated example. There she sits in the passenger seat contemplating the side mirror. Though her eyes are sad, on her lips we see the beginnings of a smile, and are left to wonder if the source of that smile is what she sees behind her, or if it’s her own face.
Which is not to say there aren’t the requisite number of joyful couples on the beach, handshaking businessmen and those other bread-and-butter shots upon which the marketing world thrives.
Because of the thought and experience that goes into these photographs, you would expect to pay a nominal premium for them, and you will. They are rights managed, with costs based on the medium in which they will appear, at what size and circulation, and other details. But it’s hard to argue with the results. Simply put, you can invest in images worthy of your design, or you can save a few bucks with the cut-rate alternatives.
In keeping with the Western theme that runs throughout Erickson Stock’s website, we can only say it is the difference between shooting a bullet, and throwing one.
PaperSpecs readers, click here to receive your copy of Erickson Stock’s inspirational photo book “Bliss.”