Dudau's Blog

Russia invaded Ukraine

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 05:49:37 -0600

By now, the world knows very well that Russia invaded Ukraine in a horrific attack on democracy, freedom, humanity and even common sense. Russian president Vladimir Putin instantly became the world’s number one villain, so the whole planet has united in condemning his cruel, irresponsible and, most people say, cowardly actions.

The invasion has left many of us speechless, however, testimony of the fiercest invasion in the past 75 years in Europe comes from the community through all the channels that are still available.

What do we know so far?

Russia bombed many sites in the main Ukrainan cities, targeting strategic objectives, but also a lot of civilian buildings, intentional or not.

Hundreds of thousands of war refugees are pouring in from Ukraine into the neighboring countries, for many of them it’s a difficult trip to take, especially with children.

Many Ukrainian civilians have joined the military forces and are trying to fight against the invasion.

It seems that there aren’t enough guns for all of them, so the population is fighting with anything they have. Many have learned to prepare Molotov Cocktails:

Through all this madness, an unlikely hero has emerged: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former actor and comedian, who was elected in 2019 with over 70% of the votes, and is now leading his people while resisting the huge Russian army sent to occupy their country.

He received standing ovations after his speech in the European Parliament, has signed the European Union application for Ukraine (which has been approved) and is regularly communicating with Ukrainians and the whole world through his social media accounts.

Meanwhile, anti Putin and anti war protests are being organized across the world, from France to Thailand, from Colombia to the United Kingdom, from Turkey to Canada. Even Moscow has seen many Russians protesting against the war, although Putin has arrested thousands of protesters so far.

Russian oligarchs, Putin and state-owned businesses are being targeted by international sanctions, the banks have been excluded from the international SWIFT system, the sport world has excluded Russia from most international competitions and the European countries have closed their air space for Russian travel.

The sanctions will, most likely, hit the Russian population as well, as Russia is getting more and more isolated from the world. Needless to say, Putin is fighting not only against Ukraine, but also against his own people, who didn’t call for this invasion and don’t want to see their young men sent to die in a war they don’t want and don’t understand.

The US President Joe Biden has condemned, along with most of the world’s leaders, the invasion of Ukraine and stated that the Russian leader "will pay a continuing high price over the long run".

The Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been ruling the country since 2000, has yet to show any signs of wanting to stop the aggression so far, although some negotiations between the two countries' delegations have been organized in Belarus.

What we can do to help?
Getting back to Ukraine, the risk of a humanitarian crisis is increasing, as food shortages are seen across the country, many families have been ripped apart due to the war in progress and military and civilian casualties are being counted in the thousands.

If you want to help, try to donate to the legitimate humanitarian organizations and relief funds, help Ukrainian refugees directly or, at least, fight the misinformation war online. Dreamstime is also doing its part to help.

If you have related pictures, you can upload them to the editorial section. The mobile app might be the fastest and easiest way to submit them. However, never risk your own safety or harm someone's dignity for a picture!
Members who wish to donate from their earnings to our Ukraine fund can make a direct donation from this page here. You can choose the amount donated, every little help matters!
As the crisis continues, try to stay informed from legitimate sources and keep away from fake news and trolls.

Humanity will prevail!

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25 Fun Facts about the Olympics

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 09:11:17 -0500

The Olympic Games span such a long and rich history, that it’s impossible to know everything about them, especially since a large part was not documented, in the way we call today documenting. They are simply going too far back in history for that.

However, as the postponed Tokyo Olympics are about to start this week, with a delay of one year and without fans’ live attendance because of the coronavirus pandemic, there was enough time to search for some interesting facts about them.

The first one is that these Olympic Games will be the first in history to take place without spectators. Maybe this will make us acknowledge that we are living truly unique times, especially since the name has been preserved as Tokyo 2020, but they are held in 2021. If you find that weird, keep reading, you will be amazed!

But since Tokyo 2020 hasn’t started just yet, I won’t include it in the list below. Here are 25 fun facts about the Olympics, from the last three millennia:

1. Nobody knows when and how the Olympic games started

The first documented proof of the Olympics is from the year 776 B.C., when the Olympic Games were organized at Olympia in ancient Greece. However, most people consider that these were already happening for around 500 years at that time.

They were held presumably every four years, during a religious event that was worshiping Zeus.

Why every four years? Because the Greeks had other games honoring other gods in the other 3 years. So, every year, the Greek were honoring either Zeus, Apollo, Elis or Poseidon, with a nice sports event. See below at number 4 why it was so nice.

2. The first Olympics only had one discipline. Or maybe you could say more, but it was basically running and a few of its variants.

3. The first Olympics only lasted for a day.

They were extended to three days in 684 B.C., and to five days in the fifth century.

4. The athletes used to run naked

During the ancient Olympic Games, there was no TV, no Facebook, no censorship, so they could just do whatever they felt like. It seems they felt like running naked at the Olympics. I think they noticed that any piece of cloth would slow them down, but the official story is that nudity provided a feeling of power and courage.

Whatever the reason, it was all for a noble cause: achieving the best performance. All the competitors were males, back then.

5. The 1500 years break

The legend says that in 393 A.D., the Olympic Games were forbidden by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, who was a Christian and wanted to suppress paganism in the Roman Empire. However, it seems that he died just 2 years earlier, in 395, so it wouldn’t have been possible.

As a side note, we’re surrounded by fake news today, when we have every possible way to record historic events and check the facts, so you can imagine how much fake news there is in the history behind us.

Long story short, the tradition faded away until the 19th century when Pierre de Coubertin reignited the tradition. Charles Pierre de Frédy by his full name, Baron de Coubertin, was a (rich) French historian who founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

He served as its second president and is now known as the father of the modern Olympic Games.

6. Women have been allowed to compete in the Olympics since 1900

The first woman to compete at the Olympic Games was Hélène de Pourtalès, from Switzerland, becoming also the first female Olympic champion.

In 1908, 37 competed in London, and in Paris 1924, 137 women.

7. London 2012 was a landmark for equality in the Olympic Games, when each nation sent at least one female competitor. It was nicknamed the Women Games because of that.

8. The modern Olympics lasted for 6 months

Yes, at some point in history, the Olympic Games used to start in spring and end in autumn.

9. The Olympic rings symbol

The Olympic rings were created by the same Pierre de Coubertin in 1913 and represent the five inhabited continents of the world. He drew them by hand on a piece of paper initially.

10. The Olympics have been canceled 3 times

Not just postponed, like Tokyo 2020 because of the pandemic, but really canceled. It happened during the two World Wars.

11. Figure Skating and Ice Hockey were part of the Summer Olympics

Figure skating and ice hockey were first introduced as part of the regular Olympics in 1908.

Then, they took a break until 1920. Finally, in 1924, they were moved to the Winter Olympics.

12. Speaking of which, the first Winter Olympics were organized in 1924.

They started in January 1924 at Chamonix, in the French Alps, under the name of International Winter Sports Week.

Only from the second edition, in 1928 in Switzerland, they received the name of Winter Games.

13. The Olympic flame is always burning, at least on Earth

The torch is lit in Athens, Greece, and if it happens to go out, a backup flame is always prepared for replacement, which was also lit in Greece.

The flame traveled around the world and an unlit torch has also been taken to space a few times.

14. Kids used to compete in the Olympics

At least until 1997, when a rule was put in place so that only athletes above 16 years old could compete. Dimitrios Loundras remains the youngest competitor and medalist in Olympic history, after participating in 1896 in Athens, while he was only 10 years old.

15. The longest unbroken Olympic record is 50 years old

It’s Bob Beamon’s long jump of 8,9 metres, which also became a world record, unbroken for 23 years.

16. Tarzan was an Olympic champion

Janos Peter Weissmuller, who played Tarzan in the 1930s, was also a competitive swimmer, winning 5 gold medals in the Olympics before jumping on the big screen.

17. Pigeon shooting was an Olympic sport

Fortunately, it only happened one time, in 1900 in Paris. They probably realized how weird that was and quickly dropped the “discipline”.

18. There used to be just one medal

Back in the ancient Olympic Games, there was only one medal awarded in each competition. You guessed right, it was a gold medal.

The three-medal format was only introduced in the modern Olympics. The last time a gold medal was made of gold was in 1904. After that, they were generally made of silver and finished with gold.

19. The first African to win a gold medal ran barefoot

And since we’re talking about medals, you may want to know that the first African to win a gold medal at the Olympics, Abebe Bikila from Ethiopia, ran barefoot the whole Olympic marathon at Paris 1960.

20. The first Paralympics were held in 1960

The Paralympic Games were conceived so that the war veterans could participate and maybe rehabilitate this way.

21. Four athletes won medals in both Summer and Winter Olympic Games

One of them, Christa Ludinger-Rothenburger, won them in the same year, 1988. The performance cannot be matched any longer, since the Summer and Winter Olympics are organized in different years at the moment.

22. The 1904 St Louis Olympic Marathon was the most bizarre of them all

In short, the first place runner actually dropped out. He got a car back to the stadium to get his clothes, but started running again when he heard the fanfare. The runner in second place was carried across the finish line by his trainers. He got the gold medal after the imposter from the first place was revealed. The fourth runner raised money from his compatriots to participate in the Olympics. Then, he lost all the money in a casino, right before the competition. He ran however, wearing normal shoes and long trousers cut with a knife at the knee level. And maybe he could have won, if he didn’t stop for an hour-long nap on the side of the track.

But wait, there’s more!

In the 9th and 12th place there were two students from South Africa who just happened to be in the town and decided to compete for fun. South Africa didn’t send a delegation to those Olympics. They were the first Africans to ever compete at the Olympic Games. They ran barefoot. The one in 9th place was chased one mile off-course by angry dogs.

But wait, there’s more!

For the entire race (42 kilometres/25 miles), there was only one water stop. Some of the competitors were close to death because of that.

23. The athletes used to share the medals

Well, it only happened once, but it's worth mentioning. At the 1936 Berlin Games, two Japanese pole-vaulters finished in second place. So, they decided to cut the silver and bronze medals in half and fuse the halves of different materials together.

24. Art used to be an Olympic discipline

Between 1912 and 1948, following the wishes of Pierre de Coubertin, artists like painters, sculptors, architects, writers and musicians used to compete in their respective fields. No photographers, unfortunately.

25. Winners’ names are engraved on the Olympic stadium walls

Who will be the champions to have their names engraved at Tokyo 2020? Let the games begin! Better late than never.

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50+ Museums you can visit online for free

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 17:32:28 -0500

One year and a half later, we’re still in a pandemic and maybe your travel plans for this summer will have to wait for better times. Traveling abroad is still uncertain, so whatever city trips and museum visits you have planned in the past year, waiting for things to get back to normal, should be considered very carefully or even postponed. Luckily, we live in a digital world, so at least for museum visits, there is a solution.

Here you will find a list of museums from all around the world that you can visit online, most of them offering virtual tours, but also pictures or videos of permanent or temporary collections. Sure, you should take them as a prelude to the real future visits, and not a substitute. You won’t be able to fully enjoy the authenticity of the real art pieces, charged with (in some cases) hundreds of years of history behind them, nor to feel the soul of the artists who put their creative genius at work.

Without further ado, in no particular order, here’s a list of 50+ museums that you can visit online, for free:

1. The Louvre - Paris, France
There's plenty more to Louvre than Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The Louvre is one of the most important landmarks in Paris and the most visited museum in the world. If you want to visit it as well, or just to remember your past visits, you can check out their virtual tour here.

2. The Met, New York, USA (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

You can access the virtual tour here, thanks to their MET 360 project, or you can see the collection of 200,000 works of art on its Google Arts&Culture page.

3. The British Museum, London, UK

They have a nice virtual tour here, through Google Street View.
4. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, USA

Not a virtual tour, but plenty of photos on their website here.

5. Vatican Museum, Rome, Italy

See the ceiling painted by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel and other exponents curated by the Popes over hundreds of years, thanks to their 360 virtual tour.

6. MoMa, New York, USA
The Museum of Modern Art, one of the largest and most influential modern art museums in the world, has more than 80,000 exponents in their online gallery.

7. Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Check out their 360 virtual tour here.

8. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

I know what you're thinking of, but Amsterdam is actually famous for having more than 140 museums, being in top 10 cities with the most museums in the world. Some of them are dedicated to what you were thinking of. But getting back to Rijksmuseum, you have a 360 tour and see more than 150,000 exponents here.

9. J. Paul Gety Museum, Los Angeles, USA

A virtual tour and online exhibition, thanks to their Google Arts & Culture page here.

10. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
Musée d’Orsay was created in the old Orsay train station, which was built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900, being designed by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard. Check out their online exhibition and virtual tour here.

11. Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain

They have a detailed online exhibition here.

12. The Dalì Museum, Florida, USA

A very well done virtual tour here.

13. Or maybe you prefer the Dali Theatre Museum in Catalonia, Spain

You'll find a very detailed virtual tour here.

14. NASA Glenn Research Center, USA

If NASA didn't have a virtual tour, then who would?

15. NASA Langley Research Center, USA - virtual tour
Pause: the list is quite large, maybe you should bookmark this article, so you can come back to it later? Or you can share it on your social media pages, so you'll know where to find it.

16. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, Italy

They feature more than 600 exponents in their online exhibition.
17. Hermitage St Petersburg, Russia - virtual tour

They have hundreds of 360 panoramas in their virtual tour section. Sit back, relax, and explore them. You will be amazed.

18. The National Women’s History Museum, Virginia, USA
Very nice online exhibitions following the history of women in the USA.

19. Egyptian Museum, Turin, Italy

You can visit them through a virtual tour here.

20. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

Just one look at this fascinating building and you'll know you want to visit it. Fortunately, you can do it right this second, with help from their virtual tour on Google Arts & Culture.

21. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA

Or you can try the online exhibition of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, set in a fascinating building as well.

22. Natural History Museum, London, UK

The museum needs no introduction, you can't go wrong with this one. And their 360 virtual tour is simply marvellous.

23. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

One of the many museums you can find in Amsterdam, with a detailed online exhibition.

24. Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, USA

The Smithsonian is one of the most visited museums in the world, and their 360 virtual tours are simply fantastic.

25. National Museum of the US Air Force, USA

It's obviously a huge museum, so you may wanna take the virtual tour first.

26. The Spy Museum, Washington DC, USA

Step into a world of real 007s through their virtual tour here.

Wow, that's a lot of museums, can you take any more?

Let's continue our cultural journey:

27. Tate Modern, London, UK

Take the 360 virtual tour to one of the most important museums of modern art.

28. The National Gallery, London, UK

This is one of the most impressing museums in the world, featuring over 2000 paintings of famous painters like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Monet, Van Gogh and many others. Take their virtual tour here.

29. Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain

Don't try to memorize this name. Just get your VR glasses ready and check out their immersive virtual tour here. Works without glasses as well.

30. Vienna State Opera, Austria

A fantastic virtual tour into one of the most famous concert halls in the world. Spoiler alert, the hall is empty, you still have to buy the tickets and get yourself there in person if you want to watch a show.

31. Capitoline Museums, Rome, Italy

Rome's oldest museums complex, The Capitoline is built in Piazza dei Campidoglio square, designed by Michelangelo, on Capitoline Hill. Its 360 virtual tour is definitely worth seeing.

32. Peles Castle, Sinaia, Romania

See where the kings of Romania used to live, in a castle that costed around $120 million to be built. Check out the virtual tour here.

33. Raffaello Exhibition in Scuderie del Quirinale, Italy In March 2020, Rome organized a landmark exhibition in honor of Raffaello, gathering over 200 paintings from around the world. It was the comemoration of 500 years since Raffaello's death. However, the coronavirus pandemic started at the same time, so it was closed after just a few days.
But you can visit it through this video tour (in Italian)

34. The Art Institute of Chicago, USA

Check out their video tours here.

35. Museo Napoleonico, Rome, Italy
Visit this museum dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, thanks to its detailed virtual tour.
36. Berardo Museum, Lisbon, Portugal

The modern art museum is located in Belem quarter and features more than 1000 works of art.
You can virtually visit it here.

37. Cluny Museum - Paris, France

Take the virtual tour into National Museum of the Middle Ages.

38. The Palace of Parliament, Bucharest, Romania
Not necessarily a real museum, but definitely worth visiting, as it is the second largest building in the world.

39. Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal

One of the world's largest private collections of art. Take the virtual tour here.
40. The Acropolis, Athens, Greece
This one needs no introduction, right? You can virtually visit it here.

41. Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece

While you're still in Athens, you can also visit the Benaki Museum, thanks to its virtual tour here.

42. Frick Collection, New York, USA
Featuring works by Bellini, Fragonard, Goya, Rembrandt, Turner, Velázquez and many others, the Frick Collection museum can be visited online here.

43. Frida Kahlo Museum, Mexico City, Mexic

See the online exhibition and virtual tours here.

44. Museum of Broken Relationships, Zagreb, Croatia

This will be an interesting visit for sure.

45. National Museum of China, Beijing, China
Whether you speak Chinese or not, you can take the virtual tour here.

46. National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan

A nice virtual tour is waiting for you here.

47. Luxembourg City Museum, Luxembourg

Luxembourg is a country. Its capital is - you guessed right - in Luxembourg City. This museum follows the 1000 years history of the city. You can take the virtual tour here.

48. National Museum of Natural History Grigore Antipa, Bucharest, Romania

You can take the virtual tour here.
49. National Museums of Ireland
Just select the desired museum and go on a virtual tour here.

50. Titanic Experience Cobh, Cork, Ireland

You may have seen the movie, but now it's time to visit the real place, where it all started.

51. Pacific Museum of Earth, Vancouver, Canada
A very nice and detailed virtual tour here.

52. Museums and landmarks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Just choose your favorite museum or landmark from Dubai and explore it in 360 here.

Having this list of museums with virtual tours at hand, I need to repeat that there’s no digital equivalent to a real visit, no camera, no matter how advanced, can replace the real feeling of seeing these places and the exponents in real life, up close and personal.

So, you should definitely plan real visits to the ones you loved the most, as soon as the travel restrictions (or your budget) allows it.

Now, if you have your own tips about great museums in your country, who offer free virtual tours, let me know in the comments below and maybe we’ll update this list and make it huge, so that more of our fellow readers can benefit from it.
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Celebrating the African contributions to the world on Africa Day

Tue, 25 May 2021 06:56:28 -0500

Africa Day is a good moment to celebrate and recognize the important contributions to the world made by all the sons and daughters of this continent. Here are a few things you may or may not know about Africa and African people:

1. Africa is the second largest continent on this planet, after Asia, covering 20% of the land area of the world.

To put things in perspective, the African continent is bigger than the United States of America, Europe, China, Japan and India combined!

2. Before Africa was invaded by the Europeans, their medicine was more advanced than the medicine in Europe. Many medical procedures and treatments that we use today in the rest of the world have emerged from Africa: the use of salicylic acid for pain relief (like in aspirin), antiseptic surgery, C-sections, the use of vaccines, brain surgery and many others.

They were also filling dental cavities long before the rest of the world did.

3. Often confused, South Africa is a country, while Southern Africa is a region, which includes several countries: Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

4. Many of the concepts we study today in mathematics were developed in Egypt, which is a transcontinental country, but a part of Africa for the majority of its land. That’s how we know that a circle has 360 degrees, for example. If you hated fractions and geometric formulas back in school, you can blame them for those as well.

5. The most common language in Africa is Arabic, spoken by some 170 million people. Other languages spoken on the continent: English (130 million people), French (115 million people), Swahili (100 million people), Berber (50 million people) and Hausa (50 million people).

6. Africa has 6 island countries: Cape Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Comoros, Mauritius, Seychelles and Madagascar. Seychelles is also the smallest country in Africa, with a population of only 98,462.

7. It seems that African people discovered America long before Europeans did.

8. Some of the oldest stone tools in the world were discovered in Africa, as well as evidence of tool production. We can assume they were pioneers in using these tools for agriculture and hunting.

9. It was the Egyptians who divided the year in 12 parts and made a yearly calendar of 365 days and a quarter. So, you may think of them when you celebrate your birthday on the same date each year.

10. Important advances in metallurgy have been made in Africa. The ancient Tanzanian furnaces were more advanced than Roman furnaces for example.

There are probably many more African contributions to what is the world today, and if you know them, please share your findings in the comments below.

Happy Africa Day to all our friends celebrating today!...

Are stock photos real?

Fri, 21 May 2021 06:50:19 -0500

When you’re asking yourself if stock photos are real, you first need to fully understand what that question entails.

Even if not all the photographs are a piece of art, photography itself is a form of art. Just like not all paintings are pieces of art, and not all painters are artists, even if painting is a form of art as well. Some painters will just paint the walls of your room, some photographers will just take passport photos for a living.

Now that we have that clear, let’s acknowledge also that skills and vision are fundamentally different topics. You can have amazing skills and no vision, or you can have a truly unique vision, while you’re lacking skills. Usually, the ideal of having good skills and unique vision is rarely achieved, and when it happens, it’s not being unanimously recognized, as both skills and vision are forever debatable, depending on who’s judging them. Most people work on developing one or the other and, later in their career, when they’re mastering one of them, they may start improving the other.

Having said that, it takes for an amazingly skilled photographer to transpose reality into a photograph. Why? Because the camera will always interpret the light and scene before it according to the settings dictated by the photographer. A camera can only capture what the photographer has decided to include in the frame, not what he left out. The sensor will only record the light that the photographer allows it to. A camera cannot take photos by itself, even on auto setting, it still has to be pointed somewhere by the photographer, it still has a lens with a certain field of view, chosen by the owner, and so on.

The eye is one of the most advanced imaging systems known to the human kind. Without solid photography and retouching skills of a photographer, cameras cannot record reality, in the same way a human eye could. Unskilled photographers don’t have the ability to set the camera the right way, so it would capture exactly what they’re seeing. If left on auto mode or other automated modes which prioritize one setting over the others (such as Program, Aperture priority or Shutter speed priority), a camera’s computer will interpret the lights and shadows and will try to decide which is more important, what combination would work best. Best for who? Certainly not for everybody, as each person would have their own vision of how a scene should be photographed. Certainly not for what is generally accepted as reality, as to this point, camera sensors are not as advanced as human vision.

Indeed, in terms of field of view, the lenses may have passed ahead already and became more advanced than the human eyes. The eye has around 120 degrees field of view, while a 14mm lens only has 114 degrees. If you look really close to an object, you will notice that the background becomes blurry, just like it happens with photo lenses when shooting macro. Yet, there are lenses that can focus from a lot closer distance than your eyes can. There are many lenses, like telephoto, super telephoto, fisheye or ultra wide angle that can “see” what your eyes can’t.

But when it comes to sensors, human vision is still much better in terms of capturing details in highlights and shadows, maybe in solving the colors as well.

So, if we conclude that it takes a great photographer to transpose reality into images shot with a camera, then we can debate what are the real photos?

Most photographers with great skills are professional photographers, as it takes time to perfect these techniques, time that most amateurs don’t have available, while working on other jobs, having a social life and so on. Are photos taken by professional photographers real photos?

Or do you consider real photos those taken by amateurs as a hobby?

The stock photography community has evolved from a small group of professional and enthusiastic stock photographers into a mass activity, where seasoned creators with huge portfolios, vacation photographers and even regular people who happen to be in the right place at the right time with a smartphone, can find a place for their images.

The stock photo buyers community has also evolved from publishing houses and marketing and advertising professionals to a mass of bloggers, social media professionals, independent journalists, book authors, students, independent filmmakers, small business owners and so on.

Each of all these categories of people have different expectations regarding the imagery they’re searching on stock photography websites.

An entrepreneur wearing an apron may look real to someone who’s feeling his struggle and enthusiasm to make things work.

But the same entrepreneur may not look real to a business consultant from a big 4 accounting firm, who is used to working with entrepreneurs of another level (of initial investment).

A group of friends having dinner on the patio may look real to someone living in such a location:

Yet, it may look too idyllic or fake to someone living in a crowded city and expects to see them gathered around a tiny table in some restaurant:

Travel may look different to different people. These two photos below are shots of the same model, by the same photographer:

Which one is the “real” one?

This one below is a street photo, so as real as it gets, with real people in a real situation, but is it picturing the reality, or just the photographer’s vision?

A real photographer may look different, depending on your expectations or target audience.

Is this a real photographer?

Or this one?

Are stock photos real? Yes, they’re as real as the photographers taking them, they’re as real as the models they’re picturing, they’re as real as your expectations.

With such a large community of creators of so many different professional backgrounds, social statuses, cultures and habits, you will find real photos for sure. You just need to know how to search for the right photos. The vast majority of the stock photos are taken by real people, in real situations, with real people - friends, family or even the photographers themselves.
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