Stock photography versus a half-day with a real photographer

Stock photography is cheap, immediate and slightly corrosive. Its cost is not the licence fee; it is that a visitor who recognises a stock image stops believing the rest of the page.

Why it undermines the page

Photographs are read as evidence. A picture of "your team" that is visibly not your team is a small dishonesty on the page where you ask for trust. Most people cannot name what is wrong — they simply find the site less convincing, which is worse, because you never receive the feedback.

Where stock is fine

• Abstract and textural backgrounds.
• Blog illustrations where nobody is claiming anything.
• Objects and materials, particularly if you edit them into your own palette.
• Anything where a photograph is decoration rather than proof.

Where it is not

• Your team. Ever.
• Your premises, your product, your work.
• Testimonials. A quote beside a stock headshot undoes the quote.
• Case studies.

What a half-day actually buys

In Germany or Canada, €400–900 for a half-day with a decent commercial photographer. That yields headshots for everyone, a handful of environment shots, some detail shots of the work, and one or two wider images for banners. It typically covers three years of a website's needs.

Prepare properly: agree the shot list in advance, tidy the space, choose clothing that suits the palette, and shoot in the same light on the same day so everything matches. An unprepared half-day yields half the usable frames.

If there is genuinely no budget

A phone by a window is better than stock. Consistent framing, plain background, one person at a time. It will not look like a magazine and it will look like you, which is the part that actually matters.

Licensing, briefly

Check what the licence permits — some stock is not licensed for advertising or for use as a trademark. Keep the licence document. Under German law, missing image attribution is a common and easily avoided source of warning letters.