That's nasty. Surely if he's a "top photographer" he could dig through his portfolio to find a half-decent image to promote his course.

Lots of wedding photographers do this practise as well.
I agree, if your "pro" enough to charge and lead excursions, then you should only advertise using what you have personally taken. After all images play a large factor in helping people decide whether or not to take a certain course or excursion

I was thinking that we shouldn't rule out that the stock photos were shot by someone on a prior workshop - when it might be fine to use (having purchased a license).

But then I thought I'd do a search of Myanmar on SS (I was gobsmacked at how many images that produced). I added terrace to the search, which cut things down a little, but still there was a ton of stuff. That's partly because the photo in question is badly keyworded - terrible spam, includes Vietnam, Japan, Malasia, Thailand, Saigon, Burma,  and other places it wasn't - and was actually shot in Guilin China...



So this is lazy and misleading. I guess the workshop business is growing and it's just an assembly line process to do package tours to famous photography spots.

If his course is in a place he's never been to, and doesn't have any photos of... and he wants to use a photo to illustrate the location, then I don't see anything wrong with it. As long as he's not specifically stating they are his images.

I think everyone is a bit hung up on it purely due to the fact it's a photography course. If it was a marketing seminar, a bread baking party, or a swingers event, then would anybody care if the event organiser hadn't shot the photo they'd used to illustrate the country the course is being held in? Probably not.

If his course is in a place he's never been to, and doesn't have any photos of... and he wants to use a photo to illustrate the location, then I don't see anything wrong with it. As long as he's not specifically stating they are his images.

I think everyone is a bit hung up on it purely due to the fact it's a photography course. If it was a marketing seminar, a bread baking party, or a swingers event, then would anybody care if the event organiser hadn't shot the photo they'd used to illustrate the country the course is being held in? Probably not.

So... you think he is traveling all over the world and he never went to Boston?
Besides, how could he organise a trip to those Chinese rice terraces in Myanmar?
Moreover, how can someone sign up for a trip, in a foreign country, with a "guide" who has never visited the place, let alone be aware of the best photo spots? Google maps and people trust him with that? C'mon man!

He probably didn't have any half-decent pictures from those places, good enough to promote a workshop. So... thank you anonymous microstocker for saving my famous a@@!

This is wrong. Legally, he is probably fine, but ethically... this is definitely wrong!

Like advertising a Nikon camera using photos made with a Canon

If his course is in a place he's never been to, and doesn't have any photos of... and he wants to use a photo to illustrate the location, then I don't see anything wrong with it. As long as he's not specifically stating they are his images.

I think everyone is a bit hung up on it purely due to the fact it's a photography course. If it was a marketing seminar, a bread baking party, or a swingers event, then would anybody care if the event organiser hadn't shot the photo they'd used to illustrate the country the course is being held in? Probably not.

I think there's a clear implication that the pictures  are a product of that course...I guess it would need to be tested in court. If it was a swingers event I guess people might be annoyed if the pictures depicted super models and hunks or the loaves shown were fancy wholemeal and you make white sliced.

I love participating in photo workshops, I have done at least 15 of them already the past years.  When I surf on the net, looking for my next one, I look for (1) Is the organizing photographer any good (so I want to see HIS images of the area, (2) can he teach (so I want to see photos shot by his guests, and (3) does he teach from 9 to 5 or does he get us out of bed for sunrise images and does he work after dinner for sunsets?    So if he puts stock images on his website, and they are from his students, these images should be on a separate webpage titled "student work".  And the page with his OWN images should (evidently) be better.  And if he shows sunrise/sunset images like these, he should put in the tour's description "including sunrise and/or sunset sessions".  I hate it when workshop leaders use the best time of the day to "review and discuss the images of the day".   
So as for me, this is NOT OK, because it's not clear who shot them.  If these are shot by his students, he should be proud of them and credit them.  And I DEFINITELY do not want to go on a workshop with some one who's never been in that country himself (even if he uses a local guide).

I couldn't look in the mirror if I'm doing this - shameful!

It may not be illegal (I'm not a lawyer and won't pretend to be one here), but it strikes me as highly unethical.  The photos on his site are heavily retouched, so unless he spends a lot of time in his workshops teaching editing techniques, his attendees will never get results like the ones he uses in his promotions.  And that's separate from any issues with locations attendees won't get to.  The workshops I've attended use either SooC or minimally edited shots; they give me a sense of what I'll have in front of my camera, but what I do with the opportunity depends largely on me.  This feels a lot more like fraud, even if it doesn't cross any legal lines.

One more weird thing.

Check the fall foliage photo shown above.

The author https://www.shutterstock.com/g/seli88 has 2 variants of the above photo, one vertical and one horizontal.

The keywords he/she used are:

autumn, autumn time, beautiful, benches, brown, calm, clear, fog, foliage, forest, fresh, gold, green, landscape, leaves, leaves fall, love, natural light, nature, orange, outdoor, park, plant, polish golden autumn, relax, rural, season, the environment, tree, vibrant, white, wild, yellow

fall, boston, massachusetts, autumn, autumn background, autumn leaf, autumn leaves, autumn trees, bark, benches, branch, brown, color, colour, foliage, garden, gold, golden, green, lake, natural, nature, outdoor, park, park scene, picnic, poland, pond, public, red, reflection, relax, season, tree, wooden, yellow

On both of them he is using Poland related keywords, but only one has Boston.

Corroborated with the fact that the author is from Poland, it is very likely that these photos are not from Boston! Is is very possible that Boston was suggested by the keywording tool and might accidentally ended up among the useful keywords.

And it is quite unlikely to see a Polish photographer visiting Boston to publish only 2, rather location agnostic, fall foliage photos from the trip.

This is probably the same mistake as the one with the Chinese rice terraces from Myanmar.

Are we taking this particularly badly because he's a photographer.
Bracket that out, and is it any different from e.g. a restaurant using stock photos or any number of actually misleading commercial uses of stock imagery (e.g. wedding photography as noted above. If real couples don't agree, they could always hire models).
Like most people, I've had some photos (one in particular, several times) used implying that they were the work of a company.

Sure, it doesn't give any confidence in the photo workshop, but you could say the same about the restaurant, wedding tog etc. etc. etc. Those who supply more commercial photos than I do must constantly see their photos used to represent products they have no relationship to (which is different from e.g. a pair of specs photshopped onto the face of a model), which kind of what commercial stock is likely to do.

And as for the Canon/Nikon thing - it has happened at least once. I remember reading about it over on the old iS forum quite soon after I started there, with the use of a stock image taken with one big brand used in Australia (IIRC) to represent another brand.

I think the thing is its the creation of images thats being sold so more like being given a sample of food by a restaurant and finding that the fine steak is actually a beefburger when you get served! In the end as has been said would be a legal matter to be tested in court. I vaguely remember someone suiing a restaurant cos those pics of the food look nothing like what you get but can't remember how far it got ;-)

Are we taking this particularly badly because he's a photographer.
Bracket that out, and is it any different from e.g. a restaurant using stock photos or any number of actually misleading commercial uses of stock imagery...

I think it is different in that photography is the product when a photographer claims a stock photo is his/her own. The comparable situation would not be a business using stock photos of a project (e.g. remodeling) they didn't work on in their ads but sending a prospective customer to visit a house they claimed to have remodeled but had not.

The Myanmar/China "oops" suggests they don't even set any store in taking you to the locations they show you pictures of (you perhaps were so taken with that image you wanted to go there in your workshop, only to find you're not even in the right country). Not to mention the lack of attention to detail doesn't speak well for the details of the workshop itself being attended to, IMO.

This isn't a business just starting out. Bryan Peterson has been around for decades. The blurb for the Myanmar workshop talks up the prior visit (in other words this isn't his first workshop to this location) and says how many photos you'll take every day - but he can't include any of his own or even get the right country?

"This is a repeat of the sold out 2017 Myanmar workshop and I am offering it twice in 2018.... Myanmar is a true photographic feast with images to be taken at most every turn in the road;; hundreds of temples, people from all walks of life, the colorful markets, mountains, rice fields, brightly dressed monks, and smiles are everywhere. ...Over the course of these ten amazing days, all four of the students will easily shoot 30 to 40 GB�s of images every day."

If it was a first time workshop, it'd be fine to explicitly say that these photos show the area but were not taken by the workshop leader.

I've never been to one of his workshops (though I did buy his books ages ago and loved them) but I've read lots of positive reviews. I honestly can't fathom why someone with his background and experience wouldn't stick to using his own work or his student's work (with permission) to promote his workshops.