Volunteer photographers are fixing Wikipedia's terrible celebrity headshots

Go to a profile of any celebrity on Wikipedia and it's quite possible that you'll be met with a terrible photo of them. Such images are often old or out of focus, perhaps captured candidly on a smartphone at a public event. A group of volunteer photographers has set out to fix that, as 404 Media reports.

Any media uploaded to Wikipedia has to be made freely available for anyone to use. Given that professional photographers want to make money from their work, they don't tend to share their photos there.

Enter WikiPortraits, a team of amateur snappers who have been hitting up festivals, award ceremonies and other events to take Creative Commons-licensed shots of high-profile attendees. Some of the stars seem very happy to have a replacement headshot on their Wikipedia page, the first stop for many people to find out about that person.

One photographer, Jay Dixit, said Succession star Jeremy Strong was all too glad to pose for a new snap. "His publicist said no," Dixit recounted. "But Jeremy said, 'Wait, you’re from Wikipedia? For the love of God, please take down that photo. You’d be doing me a service.'"

The Wikimedia Foundation and donations are funding WikiPortraits' efforts, which you can read more about at 404 Media.

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