Overview

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Part memoir, part cultural criticism, Stock Photo mines the significance of the stock photo in our everyday lives, from the ads and websites we browse, to the menus and memes that we consume. Through interviews with stock photography experts, photographers, models, consumers, and other stakeholders, Simona Supekar explores the evolution of the industry by tracing the creation of a stock photo from concept to usage while highlighting significant historical moments. Supekar weaves in her own experiences as a keyworder for a stock photography company while reckoning with her Asian American/South Asian identity in a post-9/11 world. Stock Photo also addresses how these images have the power to shape our perceptions about race, class/caste, gender, ability, and more, thus underscoring the importance of representation even in something as innocuous as a stock photo.

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Reviews

Simona Supekar’s Stock Photo is a highly insightful and illuminating examination of how culture, commerce, and technology collide to shape our modern visual world. Supekar adeptly traces the powerful lineage of the image, from the human hands of art history and stock modeling to today’s endless digital feeds and vast datasets that train artificial intelligence, revealing its immense influence on how we see and are seen. This is an essential, forward-thinking meditation on social change, challenging readers to be inspired to imagine a more diverse, ethical, and dazzlingly inventive new visual era. * Peter Chow-White, co-editor of Race After the Internet *

Author Information

Simona Supekar is Assistant Professor of English at Pasadena City College in California, USA. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic and the Los Angeles Review of Books, and she was a 2021 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction finalist for her novel manuscript.

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