Above is this week’s “free download” shot from iStockphoto.

I’m looking at the iStockphoto web site this morning.  Actually, i’m going through the training manual as to what they expect for stock photos and getting the idea that they need to be very direct and clean.  Great for the use intended, and to sell as stock photos.  And yet, in their perfection they can present the unreal as real.  I like photos to appear unreal, yet, i get kind of tired looking for, and seeing, plastic perfection ( in a “this is what your life should look like” kind of way).  Though, i don’t think that all the photos that iStockphoto accepts are plastic perfection, they are certainly in the advertising art genre.  I am going to continue to look through and see what i can learn in the process.