I don't have any advice, but I want to wish you the best of luck. I hope that it works out well for you!

Sure, because we all think envoi going image factories is an awesome idea.

I get the gist of this comment and agree, but I can't disipher the phrase "envoi going image factories".  Google was no help. 

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on April 05, 2014, 21:24

Sure, because we all think envoi going image factories is an awesome idea.

I get the gist of this comment and agree, but I can't disipher the phrase "envoi going image factories".  Google was no help. 

I get success to translate it in Chinese
特使去工廠形象
But I still don't understand�

__

The location would be in the developing world where overhead is low, and where I like to live.

Well, China/South Asia is maybe a good place for an image factory, but I am not sure that Chinese models will sell a lot in the occidental world.
Good places could be Ukraine or Moldavia, countries where the life cost less, so the salaries to pay are lower, and where you can easily find "caucasian" people probably more suitable for an us/eu market.

If you come in Ukraine let me know
 

Factory may have been a bad choice to describe the idea but several people working together may encompass the idea....

The location is in South America and the target market/niche would NOT be the saturated US/EE.   

One of the designers I was talking to was complaining that it was difficult to find stock images of people that "looked like us"...

My thoughts ( rightly or wrongly) is to produce images that project regional characteristics.

One of the designers I was talking to was complaining that it was difficult to find stock images of people that "looked like us"...

It's the same in the UK.
I was at a training meeting on Monday where they had used stock photos of American-looking families (the sort that sell by the hundred from iS at least) to illustrate some of the training slides, to all round hilarity, far more than I'd have expected. The audience is clearly more sophisticated than the stock agencies, photographers and designers know.

Some photos on some slides were clearly snapshots made specially, probably of friends - they'd never have got into a stock agency, but met with no ridicule from the audience.
NB, this was not an audience of photographers or designers, and I didn't start the laughter, although I cringed when the first one went up.