This post comes from a phone call I received – a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) from a Fortune 500 that I have worked with in the past gave me a call and asked me, “Do you know of any good places to purchase LGBT stock photography?” I sighed and said “Unfortunately there just doesn’t seem to be a good spot.”
I have helped many business owners build websites, create LGBT marketing plans and put together simple print advertisements that are oftentimes in need of LGBT photography. It truly is slim pickings. I am not saying that no LGBT stock imagery exists but the stuff that is out there is often riddled with problems. Here are a couple of issues I have found with LGBT stock photography and then I’ll share a few examples of how to solve this problem in your business.
The photo you are going to use is already being used by 1,000 other people trying to sell their products or services. I see this time and time again. You’ll see a major company come out what appears to be a great new LGBT ad campaign and within two seconds you can see that they purchased the same lesbian couple that 4 of their competitors and 25 companies outside of their industry are already using. This is happening with some very large brands.
The photos may or may not be genuine LGBT folks. I had a really interesting conversation with a photographer who was telling me about a photo shoot he was a part of. He began telling me that getting some “LGBT shots” was on the list of items for the day. When one of the two male models was told this he became indignant about not wanting to do it but eventually conceded. The problem with this is that those seemingly great LGBT shots are now on a stock photography website and it is two straight guys being paid to be gay in some photos and one of them is a homophobe. Clearly from the outside no one would be able to tell all that from a single picture but to me its the principle behind it. A consumer could easily look at the photos and just think something doesn’t look right, not being able to identify exactly what.
Stock photography relies on stereotypes a lot of times. You are in somewhat of a damned if you, damned if you don’t state. You could have a picture of two very feminine women and could have someone looking at your use of that photo and dismiss it because they can’t possibly be lesbians. This is irritating but it’s a common occurrence. This goes the same for two men. If the person viewing the images you are using has a notion of what LGBT looks like in their head whether its based on stereotypes or not – you are in a lose-lose scenario.
So when I was talking with this CDO, I outlined these problems to him and I was basically confirming to him what his gut was already saying. There are a few ways around this.
The first is, if you are with a large company that can afford an LGBT specific photo shoot – do it! There is nothing more genuine and authentic than using your own LGBT employees for your company’s marketing. I’ve seen a handful of companies do this and it is going to have a major return on investment. It solves all 3 problems outlined from above. No one else will be using these photos because they are yours. No one can question the authenticity of the photos because you can verify they are of your own employees. And the LGBT stereotype conversation can go out the window because if you are using LGBT people from within your own company whether they fall into a stereotype or not won’t matter as much because you can verify who they are because they are your employees.
Now for those of you who do not have employees or are working on a shoe string budget where a photo shoot is just not feasible there are a few things that you can do.
- You can use yourself or someone you know who is LGBT. It may sound a bit crazy or you may not want to put yourself out there but I’ll tell you what, it does the job inexpensively. I did this when I was the marketing manager in the trenches of preparing the LGBT outreach for the company I was working for. (If you don’t know how I made the business case for this, check out this blog post.) The company I was working for had many people who were homophobic jerks and I was the only person out of 90 or so who was LGBT. It was a rough environment for me for a lot of reasons but when I was preparing this campaign I didn’t like the stock photography available so I took a picture with my girlfriend at the time and we used that in our marketing materials. And it did the job because no one else was using it. I tried doing a Google search for the image but couldn’t find anything, which at this point is probably a good thing, 😉
- The next idea is that you could ask your customers or those who are loyal to your brand if they would be willing to share a picture with you that you could use in your marketing materials. Be specific on what type of image you are looking for and what the purpose and intention of this image will be. Clearly someone wouldn’t want to give you a fun family photo of themselves and come to find out you’ve cropped out the kids and are using their images to sell explosives or something extreme.
- The best way to protect yourself in either of these scenarios is getting a photo agreement together that outlines the particular usages of the photo and that you have the ability to use it in pre-determined places. It doesn’t have to be big fancy contract or agreement but needs to provide basic protections to both the business owner and the person providing their images to be used.
I hope you have found value you in this post and go forward and kick some serious but in whatever LGBT related marketing endeavors you take on. If you feel I have overlooked something please let me know. Also, if you have enjoyed this post I’d love for you to share with a friend! The more knowledge out there about options the better for the LGBT community as a whole.
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For more than a decade Jenn T. Grace, the Professional Lesbian, has helped organizations connect with the lucrative LGBTQ market. In this, her fourth LGBTQ book, she takes us behind the scenes of her professional and personal life as she shares stories that illustrate the do’s and don’ts of doing business with the LGBTQ community. Woven into her stories, which are sprinkled with Jenn’s signature style of unapologetic honesty and lighthearted humor, are proven strategies to help readers navigate this highly nuanced demographic – sensitively and profitably.
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Definitely the custom shoot is the way to go. That way you get to define each aspect of the shoot and get images customised for exactly what you need. With more general images you may have some success in the traditional agencies but I can’t say there’s much call for that in the professional stock photography world…
Thank you Jenn. Looks like I have my work cut out for me! Thank you for very much for your assistance and guidance.
[…] So while this is one small change your immediate question might be – what if I don’t have access to LGBT images? I like to advise my clients to be creative versus do things in what could appear to be the wrong way or at least an inauthentic way. Let me explain the inauthentic piece briefly by pulling an excerpt from a blog post I wrote back in September that was specifically about the downfalls of using LGBT stock photography. […]
[…] Just remember that LGBT people come in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of interests just like any other person. People are people and shouldn’t be judged based on a percentage of stereotypes that exist. This goes for all marginalized groups. On a similar note I encourage you to check out my blog post on LGBT stock photography that outlines some of the challenges in getting it right without stereotyping. You can read it by clicking here. […]
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I’ve had an incredibly hard time finding quality stock photography of LGBT parents with their kiddo(s). I do feel like custom shoots will be the way to go for future projects.
On your point of stereotypes, what is the deal with so much nakedness in the lGBT collections? Even with their children! It really bothers me that the vast majority of the stock photographers that have work published lean in so hard to the sexuality aspect instead of treating them just like a heterosexual family.
Good to know I’m not alone and this has been your experience as well. Seems like custom shoots make the most sense — for now — hopefully one day this will change.