Enthusiastic photographers have taken up portraits on Wikipedia
By ForGeeks Although Wikipedia remains one of the most popular sites in the world, its appearance doesn’t always live up to that status. Especially when it comes to celebrity photos. The images are outdated, random, and sometimes outright failures – so much so that Instagram* even has accounts dedicated to the most unfortunate Wikipedia photos.
Now a group of enthusiasts have decided to fix that – and they’re doing it without a budget, on pure enthusiasm. The WikiPortraits project enlists amateur and professional photographers to create high-quality portraits for articles that are still riddled with visual chaos.
When no photography is better than what is
One of the reasons why Wikipedia photos are so “extravagant” is because of rigid copyright restrictions. Most red carpet and award pictures are owned by big agencies and cost money, and Wikipedia, as a non-profit, doesn’t have the budget for that.
As a result, pages of famous people are often illustrated with either unprofessional shots or no photos at all. An example is comedian Emil Wekim: his photo on Wikipedia was so obscured that only the outline was left of him. One moderator even wrote in the discussion: “Better no photo at all than this.”
An equally “memorable” shot is of soccer player Kyle Bartley: a 2011 photo of him accidentally getting an opponent’s finger in his mouth. Social media users call such instances a “visual disaster.”
WikiPortraits: photography as a mission
The WikiPortraits project is set to launch in early 2024. Its goal is to build a community of volunteer photographers around the world, get accreditation to festivals and events and take portraits that can be legally posted on Wikipedia.
WikiPortraits and take portraits that can be legally posted on Wikipedia.
One of the founders is Kevin Pairavi, who along with co-founder Jennifer 8. Lee recently worked at the SXSW festival in Austin, USA – they even set up a mobile photo studio there. According to Lee:
“Some people are really bothered by how awful the pictures on Wikipedia are. And they want to change that. We want to save the world from bad pictures.”
To date, there are 55 photographers participating in the project, most of them in the U.S., but there are participants in other countries as well.
Photos that are changing the face of Wikipedia
One of the active participants in the project is Brian Berlin, a photography teacher and standup comic from New York City. He began working with WikiPortraits at the Edinburgh Festival and has since traveled to Sundance, New York Film Festival and other events, shooting, among others, Kieran Culkin and Mikey Madison.
His photo Elijah Wood, taken at Sundance, replaced an outdated and over-lit shot from 2019. The actor himself, according to Berlin, was genuinely excited about the initiative: “It’s cool that you’re doing this.”
Another volunteer is Frank Sun, a filmmaker and cameraman by trade and photographer by passion. He has shot Florence Pugh, Ben Stiller
“My old photo is a horror. I’m happy to have an actual picture on my page now.”
The project prides itself not only on celebrity portraits, but also on for the first time adding photos to the pages of those who were previously not seen at allunderrated directors, scientists, Nobel laureates. One such case is an updated photo ofJohn Jumper, who will receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024.
What’s next?
WikiPortraits already covers Cannes, SXSW, Edinburgh Fringe, Nobel Prize ceremonies. The next goal is Met Gala and the Oscars. According to Jennifer Lee:
“That’s when we get to the Met Gala – then we can definitely say we got it right.”
Although the project offers no payment, its participants feel they are doing something really important – visually improving the world’s largest encyclopedia.
* Owned by Meta, it is recognized as an extremist organization in the Russian Federation and its activities are banned.
