Stock photography is often recognisable as such, and recognisable stock imagery undercuts trust the moment a visitor notices it.
Stock photography is often recognisable as such — the same handful of generic "professional at desk" or "diverse team laughing" images appear across thousands of unrelated websites — and recognisable stock imagery undercuts trust the moment a visitor notices it, even if only unconsciously.
A visitor doesn't need to consciously identify an image as stock photography to feel its inauthenticity — a subtle, cumulative sense that the site doesn't show anything real is often exactly what "generic" or "template-like" actually means in practice.
A genuine photo of your actual team, premises, or work does something stock photography structurally cannot — it provides real, specific evidence of what a visitor will actually get, rather than a generic representation of the category.
Real photos taken poorly — bad lighting, awkward framing, low resolution — can undermine trust just as much as recognisable stock imagery, just differently. The goal is genuine and well-executed, not simply "not stock" at any quality level.
Prioritising real photography for the highest-visibility pages first — homepage hero, team page, key service pages — delivers most of the trust benefit without requiring an entire site's imagery to be replaced simultaneously.
Find out if stock imagery is undercutting your own site.
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