Calling all photographers!

Time and again over the years, members of the NSA community have told us they’d like to see more diverse and realistic images of older people in our publications, including website, research reports, and other materials.

We ourselves as NSA staff have often expressed the same desire.

The problem is that, as a small non-profit organisation, we don’t have the resources to pay for an in-house photographer.

We are, therefore, reliant on stock photos of older people out there on the internet.

Some of these we pay for, but this can be limiting financially as well as limited to what stock photo companies think audiences want to see.

For example, in our 2024 National Seniors Social Survey, a respondent wrote about the too dominant “images of older people - either leisure-only images of going on cruises, couples strolling along a beach hand in hand with sweaters around their shoulders etc., or frail people in aged care”. (We’ve all noticed this, haven’t we?)

We source other images for free, if photographers have made them public under a creative commons licence. But there’s an even more limited pool of these out there. Older people aren’t necessarily photographers’ go-to subjects.

Because of these limited resources, there’s sometimes a sameness to the images we use. The sharp-eyed among you may have noticed the same models (or even the same photos) appearing a few times in our publications.

We are further restricted by the fact that a lot of stock photos and creative commons images just don’t look plausibly Australian. While Australia is a diverse and multicultural place, often a photo’s vegetation, architecture, décor, signage, clothing, or other features clearly show it comes from somewhere else on this planet, so it seems inappropriate to use to illustrate an Australian topic.

What we really need is an army of talented photographers who want to support our community by sharing their high-quality images with the world.

Specifically, what we need is this army to go out there and take photos of older people living in Australia – in all our diverse glory.

Show us diverse places in this beautiful continent – the cities, the towns, the stations. Show us red dirt, eucalypt forests, alpine creeks, tropical seas. And the rest.

Show us you, the people you know, your community. Show us real people, not just the super-fit and super-fragile stereotypes.

We want all age groups that NSA represents, from the fabulous 50s to the happy 100s.

Let’s see a few more wrinkles, smiling crooked teeth, a bit of flab, a hearing aid. The wondrously ordinary in all its gorgeous glory.

Real people can be LGBTQIA+, fashionistas, cockies or consider themselves daggy, peculiar, or home sewing freaks.

Bring us the multicultural nature of older Australia, with people from the 200+ First Nations of this land and people who came here from 100+ other nations across the world.

Brainstorm exteriors, interiors, and people doing all the kinds of activities that older people do – which is just about everything.

Include individuals, couples, and groups of all kinds and sizes – families, friends, gangs, clubs, teams, and of course, NSA branches.

And whatever we haven’t thought of – photograph that.

Basically, more is more. If you need inspiration, glance at our research reports webpage or any of our other publications (including Connect) and create the photos that you wish we had used to illustrate them.

We don’t have the capacity at NSA to manage an image bank, but we really want to use your images.

To that end, we’d like you to submit your images to a creative commons database. We recommend Pexels – the site where we obtain a lot of images for our publications these days.

This is where your high standard photography comes in. Pexels only selects the highest quality images for its library – you can read about its requirements and review process here.

We at NSA also want to use high quality images.

So do give us everything we asked for above, but also beautifully framed, lit, focused, and in high resolution. (You’re the photography experts, not us!) 

Importantly, ensure you follow ethical guidelines and laws when taking your photos. This includes obtaining your subjects’ enthusiastic permission to have their image splashed across the internet.

That’s another reason we get images from existing databases, because they have the expertise to check the ethical side of things with you before accepting your photos. It’s not something we have the capacity to do ourselves, so please don’t send us your photos directly as we won’t be able to use them.

Once your photos are uploaded and in the public domain, do send us an email at research@nationalseniors.com.au to alert us to their location so we can go straight to them when we need an image on your subject.