It’s a mystery USB stick. And in keeping with the holiday (and mystery) spirit, I won’t give much away. But there are a few things I feel comfortable mentioning that might at least entice some of the open-minded to give it a shot.
There are a few reasons to try out Death to Stock’s Mystery USB thumb drive. For starters, Death to Stock has a pretty clear mission that’s awesome (if you haven’t guessed from its name). We’ve featured them on Fstoppers before, but for those unaware, Death to Stock supplies free-to-use-in-any-way photos to those on their mailing list every month, with an option to go premium if you want access to all the photos they’ve ever given out. Needless to say, if you’ve benefited in any way from their photos as I have, taking a chance on their Mystery USB is a great way to do that.
More importantly, however, who doesn’t like a little mystery in their lives? While every Mystery USB (supposedly) has the same content, you don’t quite know what’s on it, still. We can guess the obvious by the description: there might be some photos akin to some content you might find directly from the company. And maybe there’ll be something special like video content and other stuff to help you out in an odd pinch.
But if we were really lucky, we might find ourselves staring at a trove of files that include a surprisingly refreshingly generous resource or two that one or two people have offered to share here and there.
At $35, I can promise you the USB key is well worth the money… and then some. The way this works, of course, is that you don’t necessarily need everything — or anything, for that matter — that you’re getting. So as a trade-off, you do get more than what you’re paying for in pure potential value. But any creative will find multiple things on this drive useful at some point. I won’t use everything, but I’ll certainly do my best to make use of what I can simply because there’s some good sh*t on there.
The Mystery USB key is as good of a gift for a friend’s stocking as it is for the one, two, or ten things that you can admit you’re getting yourself in the event that you’re socially too inept to have been part of a Secret Santa this year (or, as in my case, in the event that you just want to have a little fun and let someone help surprise you).
The only sad part: it’s U.S.A.-only.
I guess that some one thinks photographers would love a $35 USB drive full of royalty free stock photos?
Realistically, this is for all kinds of creatives. But a lot of photographers have more going on than just their photography, just as the Mystery USB has a lot more than a few photos on it (in fact, I'd say it's filled less with photos than it is with other interesting things...).
My photography is a side job (as much as I wish it could be my full time job).
In my day job, I'm a communications officer. I do web development, web design, graphic design, video work, a bit of audio engineering ... and I keep having to remind managers and directors that Google isn't a free stock site and that we need to PAY for images or risk our department being sued for up to 25000$ (I'm in Canada).
I've been requesting an account to a stock site but it never gets approved ... this could be useful for me and people like me.
i have the exact same situation, i am graphiuc designer, and they always tell me find a picture on google, to sad they only ship to USA
Shipping to US only damn you Donald trump :P
How handy/neat/useful is it for an enthusiast/casual shooter? I'm very tempted
I would say that if you're JUST a photographer, there's some stuff you won't use. But that's the case for any type of creative and this product. Likewise, there are things everyone can use. Keep in mind it's still "only" $35. It's not pocket change, but it's not the whole world, either. And you're not getting SO much back for that. But it's fun, and I've found some of the things to be useful for sure. Designers and other types of creatives might find the most use out of this, though (think: Death to Stock helps people who generally need and use stock photos...so this helps those people out the most).