Copenhagen As Seen Through Stock Images

In case you didn’t know, stock photos are the root of all evil. Forget about money. These databases holding hundreds of millions of pictures, intended for any conceivable commercial purpose, they’re the ones to blame for the shit state of things. Need to market hemorrhoid cream to blind kids? This is where you find the perfect picture. Looking to bust open the field of selling corn to people who believe they live in the future? This is where you go. Want to showcase the horrors of sucking off a hippie? Look no further. What I’m getting at is, that these sites are equipped to help you sell anything short of kiddy porn – with a smile even. 

I guess that wouldn’t be half bad, if it weren’t for the sheer stereotypical nature of the photos in question. Beyond cartoonish, they work to create a simplified view of our world. A world constituted of grinning runners and white wine book clubs. As in any commercial endeavor, this means that the profitable consumer groups are the only ones represented in any way, leaving everything else by the wayside. The outcome is usually a sort of utopian conservative twilight zone, inhabited by the kind of people whose computer password is likely password. Stock photo companies like Shutterstock, iStock and Getty Images make it their business to front this world as reality. 

With this in mind, we decided to see what kind of place Copenhagen is in the glossy eyes of Getty Images, and thereby the rest of the world, who are yet to visit our capital.

What hits you right off the bat is, that if the photos on Getty are representative of reality in any way, Nyhavn would be bigger than Nørrebro, Vesterbro and Østerbro combined. The amount of tranquil pictures of boats and colored facades is staggering and apparently the embodiment of Denmark. Carefully framed around the strip clubs and hordes of frothing, fedora wearing tourists, pictures like The Nyhavn docks become alive as the sun sets in this Danish summer night are an ideal postcard worthy image of how the place would’ve been if built by the folks over at Hallmark. Only problem being that it’s in fact a horrible, horrible place, that you should steer clear of by all means.

As for the Copenhageners themselves, they’re as Generation Y as can be. What, with their zen-state inducing juices, Orlando Bloom pony tails, tablet computers and a look that says “hey, we’re young, we’re online on the Reddits and Facebooks, but we also care about the environment, ‘cause we only have one earth and stuff.” I’ll bet you anything they’re reading Buzzfeed’s Kanye West Guide to Living Life Right.

In addition to the models all being whiter than ghost jizz and predominantly heterosexual, they’re also fond of crashing movie theaters after hours, sipping unbranded sodas, staring off into the empty space. Here they’re free to put on their favorite Hunger Games flick, without having to sit next to any of those loud, scary foreign types. It doesn’t get any more romantic than that, really. 

The metro on the other hand is full of power suit clad, anemic business women like this one. Her career’s finally in a place where she can afford to ride public transportation. Good on you. Plus, this gives her time to collect herself and find the butch confidence needed to break through the glass ceiling of today’s male-dominated business world: “Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me. I’d fuck me.”

This is exactly how no-one eats breakfast. Unless those are mimosas, you don’t toast in OJ. Also, who cuts the entire loaf of bread beforehand? This model tosser family with their Danish design coffee pots and organic apples, that’s who. The flour in foreground isn’t fooling us either. As if he got up in time to bake his own semi-dark bread. Come on. With almost half of the population being overweight, serving up three McMuffins would be more accurate. And that girl is definitely old enough to hate the crap out of her family, including the boy who’s way too old to wear pyjamas. Grow up already. It’s your fault mom left, you know.

In the stock photo fairytale version of Copenhagen you’ll never grow old. I mean sure you’ll get older to the point where you won’t remember your own name, but instead of being old per say, you’ll be mature. This means that you can take your silver fox locks windsurfing every weekend with all your buds, Point Break style. Radical.

Then there’s the crushing pressure of the big city. Dark skies and traffic rushing by, one can only imagine the number of depression related articles this photo has accompanied, like “Career and Quinoa – are you all, you can be?”. How hard can it be to properly depict depression and alienation? Let’s either have this poor girl curled up in the fetus position on a bench in a shopping mall or at least open the window to make it halfway realistic. Do your job people.

However, the saddest thing about all the Copenhagen clichés is not that they’re lame and untrue, but that some people actually wish the city was like that. The ones who want to see the sun set behind the Church of our Lady to give it that Florencian look. They’re incapable of enjoying the actual great things about the city and its people. Maybe this means, they just don’t deserve it. 

Cover photo via Wikicommons