6 WAYS TO STYLE THE STOCK OUT OF
Stock Photography
The only thing more annoying than having to use stock photography is trying to find photos that actually fit your personality and style. Most of them look like vanilla-dipped turds designed to serve the masses, which coincidentally just so happens to be the last "flavor" anyone is looking for in their imagery!
Fun fact: that is my favorite flavor of cake and ice cream though – judge if you must. 🍦
More and more stock photography sites who “get it” are popping up, like Unsplash, Gratisography, and Pexels — who all have a really diversified library of free stock photography — BUT you still have the whole everyone-and-their-mother-are-using-these problem to contend with.
Believe it or not, that’s the easy part. You just need a heaping serving of style, baby!
Take jeans for instance. Everyone has at least one pair, but how many of us wear the same kind of jeans? Let alone accessorize them the same way?
You’ve got…
You get the idea.
One person’s perfect fit is another’s fashion nightmare. Our style of jeans, the way we wear them, and especially how we accessorize them are all dictated by our personality and style. This unique stylistic combination is why millions of people can buy the exact same pair of jeans and never run the risk of looking like anyone else.
Endless versatility is one of the reasons jeans have remained a staple for so long. A staple that bridges gaps between cultures, body types, even social classes. There aren’t many things you can say that about, but stock photography happens to fall into that same rare category. Stock photos are the jeans of your brand identity.
Here are 6 ways to style the stock out of the stock photography you're using so you can create a style that's all YOU!
stock photography style NO. 1
CROPPING IT DOWN
One of the greatest things about stock photography is that it usually comes in very large sizes, which makes cropping them down easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
When you’re looking for photographs keep this in mind because there are all kinds of ways you can change the entire look by simply cropping it down.
It’s a lot like looking through the lens of a camera. You’ve got a large area as a whole but the lens will only capture a small portion. Just like you’d move the lens around to capture the portion of the scene you want, you can move the cropping box around to get the desired vantage point you want out of the stock photo.
To help you visualize this technique here are few examples of how to crop the stock out of your stock photography.
original
CROP ONE
CROP TWO
CROP THREE
stock photography style NO. 2
using color overlays
Another way to style your stock photography is to use a color overlay, which is a fancy way of saying a semi-transparent layer of color placed on top of your photo.
Adding a color overlay to your stock photography just so happens to be the killerist of ways to infuse your brand color palette into your images too.
The three most popular types of overlays are flat, radial gradient, and linear gradient.
To help you visualize this technique here are few examples of how to color the stock out of your stock photography.
Note: All of the overlays used in these examples have a 70% transparency.
original
LINEAR GRADIENT
FLAT GRADIENT
RADIAL GRADIENT
stock photography style NO. 3
applying a filter
It used to be that only the photography elite had access to filters but not anymore. Thank you Instagram and the hundreds of premium photo filtering apps out there for making this one-click easy for us novices!
The only two things you need to worry about spending your fucks on, when it comes to filters, are…
IT’S ALL ABOUT THAT STYLE
For instance, is your vibe light-hearted and whimsical, urban and raw, or maybe youthful and fresh? By exploring your options with vibe-colored lenses you’ll be able to quickly and effortlessly narrow the filter flood (because there are a ton of options out there) to a filter few (because there only a handful that have your brand style written all over them).
USE IT LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT
Once you find a filter to call your own, you want to use it like your life depends on it which will create continuity across your content thus fostering some serious brand recognition. Remember, it’s your job to create a visual world that’s so unforgettable and unique it’s seared into your visitor’s memory. The only way you’re going to do that is if you’re fiercely loyal to the assets in your identity, including your photography filter.
To help you visualize this technique, here are a few examples of how to filter the stock out of your stock photography. Below I've applied different filters to the same three stock photographs. Notice the different vibe that each filter elicits and how drastically it changes the style of the photo.
Note: All of the filters used in these examples came from Photogramio.
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
MELISSA FILTER
MELISSA FILTER
MELISSA FILTER
SOPHIA FILTER
SOPHIA FILTER
SOPHIA FILTER
TOM FILTER
TOM FILTER
TOM FILTER
amber FILTER
AMBER FILTER
AMBER FILTER
stock photography style NO. 4
applying an overlay filter
Most of the noteworthy photo filtering apps offer overlay filters in addition to their regular photography filters. These particular filters come in the form of patterns, shapes, textures, and even borders, which can be used on their own or paired up with a photo filter.
Here are a few examples of how to use overlay filters to style the stock out of your stock photography. Below I've applied different overlay filters to the same three stock photographs so you can see the pairing effect for yourself.
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
MELISSA FILTER + rainbow overlay
MELISSA FILTER + RAINBOW OVERLAY
MELISSA FILTER + RAINBOW OVERLAY
SOPHIA FILTER + TRIANGLE OVERLAY
SOPHIA FILTER + TRIANGLE OVERLAY
SOPHIA FILTER + TRIANGLE OVERLAY
TOM FILTER + SCRATCHES OVERLAY
TOM FILTER + SCRATCHES OVERLAY
TOM FILTER + SCRATCHES OVERLAY
amber FILTER + GRITTY OVERLAY
AMBER FILTER + GRITTY OVERLAY
AMBER FILTER + GRITTY OVERLAY
stock photography style NO. 5
applying a blur effect
Now this one on its own is not a one size fits all option but applying a blur effect is particularly golden on photography being used as a secondary focal element, like in blog featured images and social profile banners.
When you take the crisp detail out of the stock photograph you encourage the viewer’s eye to immediately focus on the text in the image. Some handy Jedi magic when you use it the right way!
Here are a few examples of how to blur the stock out of your stock photography.
Note: All the photos in these examples were blurred using LunaPic.
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
BLUR EFFECT
BLUR EFFECT
BLUR EFFECT
stock photography style NO. 6
combination approach
Now, if you really came to play and you’re serious about styling the stock out your stock photography, the real magic happens when you use a combination of these five techniques.
Using a tag team approach is ideal because the odds of ANY brand, let alone one in your industry, using the exact same combination as you is like a billion to one. Odds I’m sure you wouldn’t mind betting on!
Here are a few combinations using the same three stock photographs I've been using to show you how you can style-tag-team the stock out of your stock photography.
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
ORIGINAL
MELISSA FILTER + CROP + VALLEY OVERLAY
amber filter + BURN overlay + leak overlay
MELISSA FILTER + BLUR + LINEAR GRADIENT
Go forth and style your stock photography responsibly and rebelliously (HELL YEAH you can have them both), your brand identity is counting on you.
one more thing
before you go
If you’re struggling to create a brand identity that you’re lovestruck over snatch your Branding Bug Out Bag. In it, I outline my entire psychology-backed approach to design, called Identity Stenciling, which is a three-phase process for identifying where your brand’s state of mind intersects with your buyer’s belief system and developing those intersections into your brand identity suite.
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