Compared two old AI stock photo platforms for a retro blog and one aged way worse

So I'm putting together this side project about 90s tech predictions, right? I needed some of those cheesy old stock photos of people holding giant cell phones or staring at CRT monitors. I compared Getty's archive from 1998 with Corbis from the same era. Figured they'd both be hilarious in that dated way. But Corbis was unreal bad. Like not even funny bad, just sad. The photos looked like someone took them with a potato and the model's expressions were creepy. Getty at least had crisp images with that overly staged corporate smile vibe. Corbis had this one photo of a woman "surfing the web" and she looked terrified. Anyone else notice how some old tech predictions just look laughable while others look like they aged into nightmares for real?

2 comments

2 Comments

paige87020d ago

Oh man, that hollow stare thing is exactly what I'm talking about. Did Corbis actually hire models or did they just grab people from a bus stop and hand them a mouse? Because that "terrified web surfing" photo sounds like someone who'd just been told the internet was going to monitor their every move. I wonder if the photographers back then even cared about the final product or if they just snapped whatever and called it a day.

wyatt_green20d ago

Totally feel you on this one. I went digging through old tech stock photos for a blog about failed predictions and Corbis genuinely freaked me out. There was one where a guy is pointing at a monitor with this hollow stare, like the computer had just told him his dog died. Getty's stuff is goofy but at least the people look like they're acting. Corbis feels like they grabbed random people off the street and told them to pretend they love their new CD-ROM drive.