Anatomy of a Concept Stock Photo: Ideas

The tried and true symbols that have been embedded in our collective subconscious, despite their overuse and cliché stature, remain powerful tools in conceptual photography. The trick is to use those symbols in new and different ways. When you succeed at doing that you, in a way, get double or even triple your bang for the buck. You get that subconscious hit, you get the quick read from a familiar image, and then you get the appreciation and boost from using the symbol in a new incarnation.

The light bulb brain image above is a great example of just such a reworked, iconic symbol. The light bulb is still the premier visual symbol of ideas and creativity. Even when we know it has been used to death, we still know what it means.  Create a new light bulb image that we haven’t seen before and it gains a new, even stronger power to attract our attention.

The human brain is another iconic image representing intelligence, creativity and ideas. In the case of our light bulb brain the brain form reinforces the concepts of ideas and creativity, adds in intelligence and possibly other themes such as artificial intelligence. On the humorous side of things I can see this image as a bright idea! Sorry.

By using an old, hackneyed concept, the lowly light bulb, we are able to create a new powerful symbol that can represent a number of concepts. It is a quick read at small thumbnail sizes but still provides impact at larger sizes. It is a memorable image, versatile in how it can be used and flexible in terms of cropping.

I delivered the photo to Blend Images. With Blend it will be available at all the major distributors and when licensed directly through Blend I will get 50% of the revenue. I expect the image to do well.  And, because there is nothing to age the image I expect it to bring in revenue for a very long time.