Paul Frosh, Stock Photography

Paul Frosh, Stock Photography

  • Submitted By: thish
  • Date Submitted: 12/18/2008 1:59 AM
  • Category: Miscellaneous
  • Words: 1989
  • Page: 8
  • Views: 1

Why is it important, as Paul Frosh (2002) argues, to frame the analysis of advertising in terms of ‘ordinariness’ and ‘distraction,’ rather than ‘uniqueness’ and ‘attention’? Consider one or two key examples from stock photography in your answer. Stock photography is not ‘unique,’ the concept behind what it may be used for could be, but not the photograph itself. Stock photography is a collection of images that are not taken for a specific company or client. They are images of things that as a reader looking simply at the photograph would see as ‘ordinary.’ They may be images of buildings, beaches, flowers, people and many other things that are not very unusual. They are used commercially and can be used and re-used by advertisers and designers to name a few. ‘The genericism of stock is its downfall,’ (Andrew Saunders, 2001) speaking about the difficulty of stock photography Saunders, reiterates the fact that stock photography is nonspecific, and has to be so to generate as much sales potential as possible, but at the same time provide an image which makes one advertiser to another feel that this particular image is ideal for their needs. ‘It is produced with no final purpose or addressee in mind...’ (Frosh 2002) To my understanding, stock photography has an order of process. Initially the photographer takes a picture, a generic picture that has no specific meaning, but still has to appeal to advertisers who need it to mean something. Then images are given to an agency to distribute at a particular price, whether it be through licensing fees or outright ownership of the image(s). These images can be bought by different clients for different purposes, hence why the image is better, the more ambiguous it is. Therefore it comes under Frosh’s categorisation of a ‘system’ rhetoric against ‘mission’ rhetoric. More of which I will explain. In this essay, I hope to investigate the importance Paul Frosh’s ideas of ‘ordinariness’ and ‘distraction’ in relation to stock...

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