Hey guys,

I find stock imaging surprisingly consistent despite the cultural diversity of its suppliers.

I'd like to know, if any of you have any insight -- what do you suppose will be in demand in the near future for culture-specific imaging? For instance, I live in Hawaii, but I know that Hawaiiana imaging is not going to do my portfolio exceedingly well. But anyway, with all of the developments of our modern world, perhaps we can anticipate future needs in imaging, especially on the level of cultural diversity and specific needs based on modern day global trend changes?

I know this is an easy question for yalls since I'm aware all of you carefully consider all of the demographics, supply/demand ahead of time and never create imaging on a whim or just on "what is fun"!

I mostly would agree with you Sean, but ethnic models don't seem to be as widespread . If any, they seem to move in trends, ie. afro american , then the next came chinese, and then the mixed race. Still, they seem to be mostly used by banks, or real estates in communities where these ethnics have financial clouts. eg. at one time when China took back Hong Kong, there was an exodus of chinese immigrating to Canada, the flyers were all images of chinese families happily posed in front of super large houses. It sort of died down for over a decade more or less.
Still, if you look at MSN,etc.. you can't help feeling that the cheesecake WASP is still prevalently the flavor of the day, as always.

My guess is, that in the US anyway, the great influx and growth of the Spanish speaking, latino population will be a driving force.

Already the most popular radio station in Los Angeles is a Spanish language station.
I am seeing more & more product packages that are in Spanish and English.
Every time I call a major bank or phone company I get the option to press a number for instruciones in Spanish.

So my cloudy crystal ball is saying, shoot Hispanics.

good observation nosaya. i come from an immersion of hispanic culture, and i agree there is a growing consciousness. but i don't think this is what buyer wants.stock images are use demographically but strategically market targets towards who spends the most money. granted the hispanics and other ethnics spend lots of money , but the mostly converge within their communities, ie. little italy, chinatown, latin alley,etc..the general advertising does not go into these satellite communities, most ethnic businesses are mom and pop store, they don't go into big time ads. 
for that reason, traditional and still prevalent, the images are going to be white pretty  girls and guys with smooth white hands and white teeth . if this is not so, just look at most of the Big 6 home page, how often do you NOT see white cheese cake?

no, sorry, no ricky martin macarena revival. even so, ricky martin and luis miguel try very hard to look white as well. even the fashion experts once pointed out that there is no black model, just black women with white features.ie. naomi,etc..

As much as we hate to admit it, white milk still outsell chocolate milk 

lol, and from your avatar, it is pretty obvious Jennifer Connelly is hotter than Halle Berry , hmm???

Quote from: puravida on July 08, 2009, 09:49

Quote from: tan510jomast on July 08, 2009, 09:43

As much as we hate to admit it, white milk still outsell chocolate milk 

lol, and from your avatar, it is pretty obvious Jennifer Connelly is hotter than Halle Berry , hmm???

No way dude! Halle Berry is da bomb! 

ha!ha!...
WHITE MILK 1
CHOCOLATE MILK 1


OBS: sorry about the distraction, KonaHawaii !  Aloha ! 

Quote from: puravida on July 08, 2009, 09:49

lol, and from your avatar, it is pretty obvious Jennifer Connelly is hotter than Halle Berry , hmm???

No. He just came out as a crossdresser. 

deleted... not worth mentioning

Remember when building an Asian ethnic cast to understand the cultural differences when grouping the people. Some Asians do not get along well with others and to many of us the differences may appear small but to the buyer it is clear as day. This goes for any culture that is different than your own. Do your research first or have someone on the set that knows the subtle differences in that specific culture.

Very good observation Jonathan.
It's all about perception.

.

@ Jonathan, I thought you were on vacation  
You got one heart for that last post. As always, much obliged for your helpful insight.

Just to drive the point a bit, I sold five images today on IS as follows:
Asian - 2
Latina -1
Caucasian (aka white milk) -1

Of course my portfolio is heavily biased toward Asian models, but the few Hispanics that I have all seem to sell.

Just to drive the point a bit, I sold five images today on IS as follows:
Asian - 2
Latina -1
Caucasian (aka white milk) -1

Of course my portfolio is heavily biased toward Asian models, but the few Hispanics that I have all seem to sell.

 Last winter my best friend told me I should submit to micro some of my self portraits, since they were asking for ethnics. I sold one of me posed as a business man in business casual with a tie.  also sold another in a classic coat.
Another one like me in a sauna.
However, the irony to all this is I sold 5 times at 3 different sites the least expected to be sold.A pose as a guy shocked to receive a bill. It's funny because  the least posed , the least serious , thrown in just for fun , sold the most.
The others well posed and composed , working man , well dress , using the computer,etc.. sold nada.
I suppose this proves, as always, you never can tell what will sell well for you.

Shoot obese people, they are on the rise :-)

Sometimes I think eating is cultural habit. French are less obese than Americans ;-) It must be combination of cuisine and lots of wine versus hamburgers and beer :-)

Hi SJ,

 I agree, it is much tougher on the casting side. It can also depend where you are located as a shooter. Seattle has a very big Asian community so that does help a lot for our casting but our Latino market is small and mainly Hispanic. I can say the Koreans and Japanese do not get along very well generally speaking, it goes back a long way.
 I really believe that even in Micro or any of the models the better your models talent level the higher your sales, whatever race. I don't try to hold back on my casting costs for models on Micro I just shoot 4 times more images in a day and having good talent makes that so much easier.
 I think a shooter should use what they have access to and focus more on the quality of the talent and not get to caught up in the ethnicity. Even if the casts are all caucasian because of a shooters location then I say shoot the best caucasians that know how to model as apposed to trying to make a cast out of a particular ethnicity that may not be as photogenic or as strong in front of the lens.

Best,
Jonathan

there was a lot of talk a while back that samsung would buy pentax, some people thought it a foregone conclusion (at least until they decided to go seperate ways).  then it was pointed out by a few people the differences between japan and korea and that there would be some Japanese people (particularly very traditional Japanese) that would rather close down Pentax then sell it to a Korean company for any amount of money.  I have no idea as I dont know the cultures so dont know if it is BS or not.

My daughter was telling me this morning that she was either playing a game or reading a book (I wasnt paying a lot of attention and mentioned how the person in the story of it was very typically chinese, but most of what she was wearing was Japanese and some of what she didn't really fit either and was from somewhere else (cant remember).  She mentioned that it was wrong and the author obvisously had no idea and it annoyed her. I asked if it was a big deal (because I wouldnt have a clue) and she said it was like saying someone is european because they look stereotypical english, and wear lederhosen, beret and dutch clogs all at once . She has studied japanese and asian studies at school and has been to Japan for a whole of 8 weeks, and she still managed to pick up that it was wrong, made me think of your earlier post of the differences that soemone like me would have no idea about.