“There’s that guy again!”

Anyone who’s  had the task of developing smart-looking creative when timing and budgets are tight likely has utilized stock photography on more than one occasion.

However, one of the pitfalls of using inexpensive stock images is you just never know when a particular model is going to turn “hot” and suddenly start showing up everywhere — including such awkward locations as your competitor’s product literature.

Several years ago, a straw-hatted granny featured on the cover of ye olde PhotoDisc Volume 33 seemed to be appearing on everything from pharmacy ads to church bulletins. Blessedly, she’s since faded from view … but suddenly, a newcomer has burst on the downloadable image scene: a 50-ish businessman type that’s known at our studio as the “There’s That Guy Again!” Guy.

TTGA Guy actually made a debut here in our own work about 3 years ago as astand-in for an education executive after a tortured search for a budget-priced photo of a smart, friendly-looking, OLDER professional male yielded few credible results.  (Doesn’t he look approachable and engaging?)

Nevertheless, despite the fact that good stock pix of mature professionals are still as hard to come by as a World Series victory for the Cubs, we’re going to have to retire TTGA Guy’s jersey here at NYN due to his regrettable overexposure.

In just the last few months, we’ve nabbed TTGA Guy posing as a business consultant, a doctor (awkwardly also showing up as a patient in the same publication), a “biosciences industry decision-maker,” an Israeli investor (complete with a totally unconvincing Photoshopped yarmulke), and a creepy Craigslist advertiser of unknown professional background.

Have YOU seen TTGA Guy?  Post your screen caps of him here — we’d love to add them to our collection.  Do you know him? Let him know that whatever he was paid for that shoot, it wasn’t nearly enough.  Do you know any stock-agency photographers?  Tell them to quit stuffing their online portfolios with cute 20-year-olds, and go for the geezers — it’s clearly where the action is.