Visit a celebrity’s Wikipedia page and there’s a good chance you’ll be greeted by a blurry, outdated, or unflattering photo. These images often look like they were snapped in passing at a public event—because, in many cases, they were.
The reason? Wikipedia requires all images to be freely available for public use. Since professional photographers typically sell their work, high-quality portraits rarely make it onto the site. That’s bad news for celebrities, for whom this page is often their most-viewed online presence—and therefore the face they present to the world. Some photos are so notoriously bad, they’ve even earned a spot on a dedicated Instagram page.
Enter WikiPortraits: a team of volunteer photographers on a mission to fix this injustice.
Armed with their own camera gear—and often covering their own travel—these photographers attend festivals, award shows, and industry events to capture high-quality, freely licensed images of celebrities and other notable figures. They’ve brought portrait studios to major events like the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, and Cannes, helping to refresh outdated Wikipedia photos or fill in the blanks for biographies missing images altogether.
“It’s been in the back of our minds for quite a while now,” Kevin Payravi, one of WikiPortraits’ cofounders, told 404 Media in a recent interview. Last year, the team decided to turn the idea into action. They secured press credentials for Sundance 2024, sent a few photographers to the festival, and set up a portrait studio on site. It marked WikiPortraits’s first coordinated effort in the U.S. to capture high-quality, freely licensed images specifically for Wikipedia.
Since launching last year, WikiPortraits has grown to over 30 photographers, collectively covering about 10 global festivals and snapping nearly 5,000 freely licensed celebrity portraits. Their photos have racked up millions of views on Wikipedia and have even been picked up by news outlets around the world. Celebrities? They’re often thrilled.
Just ask Jeremy Strong. At a New York screening of The Apprentice, photographer Nikhil Dixit approached the Succession star about taking an updated Wikipedia photo. Strong’s publicist initially declined, Dixit told 404 Media, but the actor interrupted. “Wait, you’re from Wikipedia?” he asked. “For the love of God, please take down that photo. You’d be doing me a service.”
Accedi per aggiungere un commento
Altri post in questo gruppo
Earlier this month, Apple officially announced that it would be postponing the launch of some planned Apple Intelligence features to a later, unspecified date in the future. These features mainly
Anthropic announced Thursday that it has added web search capability to its Claude chatbot. It’s not a new feature to the AI world—but the company’s approach stands as one of the most thoughtful t
If the thought of being hunted by something that can see your every move makes your skin crawl, you might want to steer clear of Eyes Never Wake.
This viral horror game takes im
Market manipulation in the cryptocurrency world is rampant—and fewer than 500 people are responsible for as much as $250 million a year in profits and over $3.2 trillion in artificial trading, acc
One more reminder about our upcoming online event: On Thursday, March 27, at 1 p.m. ET, my colleague Max Ufberg and I will host “The AI Tools We Love Right Now—and What’s Next,” exclusively for
It’s a story that sounds almost too outrageous to be true. Deel, a $12 billion company in the HR tech space, is facing serious allegations of corporate espionage, according to a lawsuit filed by i
