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Sound Technician Woman Stock Photo Fail

Here’s a nice photo of a young woman working in a recording studio.

Can you spot the problem?

Sound-technicianDid you get it?

She’s not talking into the talkback, that’s a lamp!

It’s great that schools are trying to get more women into the industry but it’s really unfortunate they need to use such obviously staged and incorrect photos.

I found this image used here, but it came from Shutterstock originally.

72 Comments

  1. Si
    Si June 3, 2014

    Did you mean, ‘what’ a lamp!? Who’s the lamp now…

  2. notoriousjde
    notoriousjde June 3, 2014

    the dodgiest thing in this photo is not that she’s talking into the lamp, it’s that they appear to be advocating the use of an M7CL POS

    • Fredwood
      Fredwood June 4, 2014

      Tha k you for being the first person to figure out that that is a live consile ( a shitty sounding one at that) in the string of a studio… The lamp is just hilarious!

  3. Gabriel Androczky
    Gabriel Androczky June 3, 2014

    You don’t get it… have you read the name of the school? “The Canadian Women of Innovation”. They are so innovative, they are able to use the lamp as a talkback microphone! In fact, maybe it’s the two combined and they hold a patent for that! Never underestimate the power of innovation :))))

  4. Gabriel Androczky
    Gabriel Androczky June 3, 2014

    As a matter of fact, to me, it’s the eyebrows that look strange 🙂

  5. Patrick
    Patrick June 3, 2014

    It wouldn’t work any way. The desk isn’t on.

  6. JF Madeleine
    JF Madeleine June 3, 2014

    hmm I didn’t know that the M7CL was a recording desk lol

  7. noot
    noot June 3, 2014

    Like everyone hve not used a M7CL before… hahhaahaha

  8. Laura
    Laura June 3, 2014

    Yep, there are tons of stock images that have it all wrong when it comes to music. But this one is kind of infuriating!!

  9. Sam Horder
    Sam Horder June 3, 2014

    Not to mention its an M7, No one would use an M7 as a recording desk!

  10. Antti Edward Vainio
    Antti Edward Vainio June 3, 2014

    …and what studio has a Yamaha M7CL in their control room. None. Plus talking tona lamp. Quite priceless…

  11. J-S
    J-S June 3, 2014

    Light up your speach!

  12. Joe
    Joe June 3, 2014

    also, that fader would not be assigned to the talkback mic.

  13. Mick
    Mick June 3, 2014

    Yeah, who would use an m7cl in a studio?? FAIL!

  14. clay gold
    clay gold June 4, 2014

    Maybe she’s just adjusting it? I sometimes do that.

  15. Cale McCollough
    Cale McCollough June 4, 2014

    In their defense, professional photographers don’t really care about stuff like that and the person who coordinates media for the school usually doesn’t know anything about what the school teaches. They tend to be graphic design master’s students who are completely incompetent at time in my experience. This is just another example.

  16. GeoD
    GeoD June 4, 2014

    If that’s a studio, I want to work there. The background is a bar.

  17. John Murray
    John Murray June 4, 2014

    Forgive my gender political incorrectness but f you are going to portray a positive image of women in audio, would you really: 1) have her bringing her mouth to something in her hand that is long, black, and cylindrical (the overt symbolism is killing me here!), and 2) if only the light was on, it would take advantage of the reason she has that zipper half way to her navel? Don’t you think that even anyone without any audio knowledge would have chosen a different shot of that staged scenario? Whomever ran this shoot should have had her zip up and take her hand off the phallic symbol. There had to be considerable male-chauvinist tongue-in-cheek when selecting that shot for public release.

  18. nou
    nou June 4, 2014

    M7CL for recording? nahh!

  19. Martin Powell
    Martin Powell June 4, 2014

    maybe she doesn’t like the band she’s doing sound for .. i’d talk into a lamp aswell then …

  20. Gemma Seymour
    Gemma Seymour June 4, 2014

    Maybe she’s holding her hand over the lamp because it’s blinding her, and she’s trying to see through the glass. LOL

  21. Erik Sales
    Erik Sales June 5, 2014

    Hey now…it could be that she is using a type of fiber optics to communicate with the musicians. It directly converts her voice into light waves and…….
    (I do have a gooseneck mic similar to that for talkback…just sayin’…)

  22. tubegeek
    tubegeek June 5, 2014

    Those who are bitching about it being a live console are perhaps overlooking the fact that it is clearly a live sound location – look at the barriers around the FOH position clearly visible. That’s not what you set up in a control room, is it?

    I have a couple AT SDC gooseneck mics that look quite a bit like that, and no light is coming from the mic/light to settle the issue.

    Agreed re: phallic symbol pointing into mouth/mega cleavage comment, though.

    My biggest problem with this photo is the pleather jacket which appears to expose naked midriff.

    A real fashion victim here.

  23. Ron Gull
    Ron Gull June 8, 2014

    not only is she talking into a lamp, her hand is on a bunch of faders nowhere near the talkback mic button…

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