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How Stock Art Illustrates LGBT Lives
For those unfamiliar with the term, stock photography is art drawn from databases for a variety of uses in fields like advertising and editorial.
The Advocate, for example, uses stock photography to illustrate articles that address topics not tied to specific events or people. A fit man does crunches in "How Summer and Diet Change Your DNA." A same-sex couple cradles their child in "Republicans Vote for 'License to Discriminate' Against LGBT Parents." A girl reaches for a $10 bill in "Boys Paid Higher Allowances Than Girls, Report Suggests."
Credit: SolStock, E+, Getty Images
The goal in this illustration is to be generic while also speaking to the community or idea referenced in the article. But occasionally, stock art has become the news. Most infamously, "Women Laughing Alone With Salad," a series of images of women smiling with plates of lettuce, went viral. For many, the series, in addition to its strangeness, became emblematic of how stock art can also be complicit in promoting gender stereotypes in media. Likewise, stock art of the LGBT community can be problematic if the majority of images are limited to, say, young white gay men drinking vodka sodas.
Credit: Caroline Tompkins, Refinery29
But stock photo agencies are cognizant of the need to illustrate queer people beyond stereotypes.
"There's so much more than that," said Tristen Norman, the head of Creative Research, Americas at Getty Images. "We have such a rich tapestry of creative images that are out there and available for commercial use. And we're trying to dismantle that perception [of stock art promoting stereotypes], if you will, with real people and really beautiful work."
Credit: Campbell Addy, Digital Vision, Getty Images
At present, Getty Images has 300 million assets, which include photos, videos, and music uploaded by over 250,000 contributors. Hundreds of thousands of those assets relate to the LGBT community. And the demand for diverse images of this community has never been higher. For example, the agency, which boasts 1 billion searches per year, has recorded huge increases for terms like "transgender teen" (129 percent), "gender fluid" (214 percent), "LGBTQ+" (249 percent), and "transgender couple" (150 percent).
Credit: Campbell Addy, Digital Vision, Getty Images
This is an enormous expansion of interest in the nuances of queer representation, which has coincided with the rise of the modern LGBT rights movement. In 2009, a queer image -- of a young, laughing lesbian couple -- became a top seller of Getty Images for the first time. At the time, marriage equality was spreading to Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire, and Prop. 8 had recently repealed it in California. This same image became a top seller again in 2011. Another image of a female couple jumped to the top of the charts in 2015, the year marriage equality came to the entire United States. An image of an older same-sex couple spiked in 2016. And in 2017, a male same-sex couple became a top seller for the first time. The image portrayed the pair reviewing paperwork to buy a home.
Credit: EyeJoy, E+, Getty Images
Norman said she and her team -- which has several queer members -- have discussed the significance of the 2017 top seller and hailed it as a marker of progress. This portrait shows gay people "doing something that all of us aspire to as part of the American dream of buying a home. And that's what's being represented here rather than reducing them to their sexuality and their romantic partnership."
"We're just slowly but surely getting our customers ... to understand that [when it comes to showing queer people] it's not just about ... their relationships and specializing and objectifying. It's about the full story," she said.
Credit: Elke Meitzel, Moment, Getty Images
Norman credits Hollywood -- including shows like FX's Pose and VH1's RuPaul's Drag Race and films like Moonlight -- as "leading the charge" in this push for diversity. "There [are] so many stories out there being told in art and culture," said Norman. "We are trying to force the industry to ... pick up that mantle as well, because it's really important to be representing ... diverse audiences within media and advertising."
Credit: Braden Summers, Taxi, Getty Images
Norman said Getty Images has been leading a "concerted effort" within the past decade to expand the diversity of its own database. "We've been trying to make sure that we practice what we preach and put our money where our mouth is, you know, and shatter a lot of the stereotypes that you can see about a lot of the communities that don't get represented."
"Visuals have been used as a tool to sort of uphold stereotypes," she added. "And we have slowly but surely chipping away and breaking those down for all communities, including the LGBTQ+ community."
Credit: Braden Summers, Taxi, Getty Images
In this slideshow, curated by the Getty team, see a sampling of how the stock image has evolved in recent years to become more intersectional. These photos depict LGBT people "who are different body shapes and sizes, different genders and identities, people of color, [and] a different socioeconomic status," said Norman. Enjoy the show.
Credit: Campbell Addy, Digital Vision, Getty Images
Credit: Jewel Samad, AP, Getty Images
Credit: Lula Hyers, Refinery29, Getty Images
Credit: Hex, Getty Images
