Bad Stock Art

So, someone in this picture looks like an actual, professional serious nurse. She’s got no time for the bullshit. She’s overworked and underpaid.  She could properly install a catheter for you. And someone else in this picture looks like a barbie clown stripper from upskirts.com. And she’s obviously not actually hurt. She’s a cartoon. So, what the hell are we supposed to do with this? Use it to illustrate “ludicrous” in the dictionary? Why so serious? Why so absurd? Why waste our time?

Pick a direction. Thanks.

These perfectly ordinary males between ages 18-22 are just hanging around, throwing darts at each other without a care in the world. I wonder if the dart is loaded up with tattoo ink…

Dude, hold still! You're my target demographic!

Well isn’t this a clever metaphor? No, it isn’t. IF the target is your brain and the object is getting high with the needles, you totally missed the mark. IF the goal is to get scissors and scalpels into your brain for a lobotomy, you missed the bulls-eye there too. Essentially, this image makes no F-ing sense. Write a headline for this graphic. Please, we’re all waiting.

Just say NO to drugs and scalpels and scissors.

And technically, this isn’t even a dartboard. FAIL.

Ohhhhhhh, you thought you were done looking at stupid painted metallic hands. Nope. It never ends. EVER!

FEEL my glitter sheen!!

Nor do the objects held by metal hands:

I have an idea - STOP WASTING FILM!!

Note to professional models seeking work: if you get propositioned by a motivated photographer with buckets of metallic body paint: RUN AWAY. Otherwise you’ll have to get naked and paint yourself up for a never-ending photo shoot featuring you and your glittery, submissive skin. If you’re that desperate for cash, be sure you get paid up front and say ‘no thanks’ to a percentage of the royalties. Because no one is going to buy that shit.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

It really never ends…

High 5 on fumes!

I have a cup.

Oh, I get it! An astronaut is coming out of my laptop to dust my fireplace! What convenience! But, what I don’t get is, how do you dust in zero gravity? The dust would just float everywhere. Other than that, this is TOTALLY realistic and NOT making me want to sear my eyelids shut – forsaking vision for the rest of my life. Not at all.

What photoshop diarrhea would look like in zero gravity.

Yep, another super fabulous artsy photoshop series – I’m going to call it, “Photoshop Sextasy”

Oh yeahhh, render that bitmap all over my face.

And a little creepier, but equally nonsensical and pseudo-dramatic sensual.

You're so hot when your skin slides off your face.

So, you’re shouting into a magnifying glass in the middle of the desert … is the overwhelming part that your tongue is searing from the sun rays or that nobody came to your meeting on a sand dune?

Can anybody hear my big mouth??

As I’ve said before, searching for “crazy” stock photography is a demented, yet playful, journey to madness. I would pay just to see this image used in an ad.

Do you want to touch my orbs?

© copyright 1999-2010 Getty Images, Inc. All rights reserved.

Um, so, in what way is she tired? And what idea/emotion is she supposed to be expressing? Zany? Psychotic? Wasting my life?

And while she doesn’t appear the least bit sleepy, she sure makes me tired… tired of the “balloon head caricature” treatment. This trend will not die. This is our first balloonhead and, I assure you, there will be hundreds more. In my mind, there’s nothing more half-assed than scaling someone’s head in photoshop and passing it off as a “caricature”.

Kiss me, I'm trendy.

Well, it certainly is crazy. Searching for ‘crazy’ stock art is an equally slippery slope of nonsense and intense hilarity. It makes my job take forever, but damn it sure is fun. Of course, I don’t have clients in the high-fashion industry, where this would be filed under “fabulous”.

Does this jump rope make me look fierce?

Help! I’m falling and I can’t stop blasting my nips!

Note to self: titty twister

WOW.

Thanks to John for this jaw-dropping entry, which shows you just what happens when you dare to test the bounds of stock art reality.

Although, I think I now understand the meaning behind the Hall and Oats song “Private Eyes”. They certainly are watching you, aren’t they?

Watching your every move...

Listen up children and listen up well. There is a reason that 99% of magicians are relegated to the birthday party circuit.

It’s because they’re freakin’ creepy.

I’m really sorry about this magicians of the world – but you’re just a smattering of white face paint away from being a clown.

This image makes me want to break out in song. Ahem.

“Rollin down the street

With my briefcase

Sipping a latte

Laid back

With my mind on my money and my money on my mind.”

Child abuse is nothing to laugh at. It is a serious issue that should be handled with integrity and sensitivity. Also, dumping a quarry load onto a child’s face probably qualifies as abuse.

DARE to keep children from being stoned

Not sure if these are children, but I am sure that the focal point of this picture is the in-your-face-flying-genitals.

Snatch Attack!