Being in the creative industry isn’t always easy on the finances, not to mention it can get lonely. This community of and for photographers exists to address those plights. Diversify Photo is here for a reason.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a resource we can go to when we need photographers for our projects? Especially for brands that want to expand their roster and work with fresh, new creatives. Or editors and journalists looking for photographers of color who have a better understanding of the story they’re working on.
Wouldn’t it also be nice if there was a resource that BIPOC photographers could check for the latest workshops, contests, grants, and even mentorships?
Well, there is.
It all started with a Google spreadsheet. Today, seven years later, Diversify Photo is one of the most reputable communities of BIPOC photographers and visual creatives, and a reliable resource for brands like Shutterstock—many of the folks in our Create Fund roster are from Diversify Photo.
Their tight-knit team does all the heavy vetting and works hard to ensure every brand and editor knows there’s this gem of a resource they can go to and trust that the photographers here can nail every project they commit to.
We spoke with Andrea Wise and Brent Lewis, co-founders of Diversify Photo, about the work they do, why communities like this matter, and so much more.
License these image via Jyotsna Bhamidipati, kevkevtruong, and Alfield Reeves.
Shutterstock: Hi Brent and Andrea, thanks for taking the time to do this! To start, Diversify Photo was founded in 2017. Take me back to that first year.
Brent Lewis: So, I was, at that time, the photo editor of ESPN’s The Undefeated. I was trying to get my bearings on my first time being an editor and my thing was trying to make the website the Ebony and Jet of 2016. I remember calling the photographers that I knew and everyone was in New York or LA, and my budget doesn’t really work like that. I can’t really be flying people to Georgia every week.
I remember having conversations with people, gathering more lists, and putting something together for a database of photographers. Around that same time, Women Photograph launched, and seeing this list, I was like, “Okay, cool. We can probably do something like this.”
I ran into a bunch of people, and I was hearing about this person, Andrea Wise, and someone’s like, “Andrea’s doing the exact same thing. Are you guys working together?” I was like, “I don’t know who this person is.” So, we reached out to Andrea and we eventually put a Google Forms call out on Facebook and spread it organically across social media.
We were thinking maybe we’ll have a couple of hundred, maybe 400 or 500 people and to our excitement, it was 1,500. So we got together with a bunch of editors we were working with at the time, Jennifer Samuel over at Nat Geo, Elijah Sinclair Walker . . . we went through those 1,500 photographers, found the best of the best, and came down to the original 277 that we launched Diversify Photo with.
SSTK: In 2017, if I remember correctly, people were already talking about diversity and inclusivity, right? Brands are already starting to realize, “Yeah, this is something that we need to pay more attention to.” Is that correct?
Lewis: 2017 was the tip of that conversation, and I think we were right on the cusp of the #MeToo Movement. That was the beginning of conversations like, who’s in these rooms? Who has the ability to speak up? Who has the ability to be heard?
We started taking harder looks at who are in these positions of power, in these positions of influence, and who is controlling the way that history and right now are being seen.
SSTK: How did the playing field look back then?
Lewis: You would see glimpses of really talented photographers of color, but it was still kind of that old guard. It was homogenous, in a way. You’re seeing the same white photographers that might’ve gone to one of the legacy schools, getting those really cool assignments in the editorial world.
I remember when Black Panther came out, I was watching all the magazine covers come out, and every single one was like, not [done by] a black photographer. And I was like, this is the low lift right here.
That’s what the landscape looked like. But it was really great because that also sparked a conversation about who’s making these images and why that matters.
Andrea Wise: I think a big thing we saw at that moment was how hiring decisions were made. Where even the best-intentioned photo editors didn’t have a ton of resources for finding photographers from outside their existing personal networks.
Also, there are a lot of spaces for getting into the industry—university programs, really expensive workshops that have tuition fees, conferences that you have to be able to afford to travel to. Many of those spaces were a lot less accessible to a broader range of photographers, and those were the spaces where most of the photo editors were coming out of and where most of those photo editors were forming relationships with photographers and other editors that they would call up and ask for recommendations. But everyone was sort of pulling from the same limited pool.
I feel like one of the ways the landscape has really changed since then was largely due to groups like Women Photograph, like what we’ve done with Diversify Photo, with Indigenous Photograph, Everyday Projects. . . . Now, there are these resources where editors can go to find photographers that they wouldn’t otherwise find.
SSTK: Why do you think it’s important for editors, newsrooms, and businesses in general to diversify their roster of photographers. And, to follow up on that, if they don’t, what’s being compromised? What’s at risk for them?
Wise: I think that for a lot of reasons, we live in a world that is somewhat segregated along a lot of different lines. The stories that ultimately form stereotypes or can form prejudice, those stories come from the media that we consume.
Diversifying the viewpoints from which those images are made is really, for me, about having visual media have a much more accurate reflection of the world. I think that for brands, it can let you tap into an audience that you’re not already reaching.
Lewis: And doubling down on that, one of my favorite quotes that Shahidul Alam always says is, “Until the lions have their storyteller, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.”
That quote resonates with me so much because we haven’t seen these parts of history told through the lenses and viewpoints of others. And if we don’t have that, then we’re not telling the whole story. We’re letting our audience down. We’re letting history down.
Wise: I think that’s such an interesting question and such an interesting observation because I think that you’re right, we are living at a moment in history where we are more accountable to our audiences in a direct way than we ever were, certainly pre-social media and pre-internet.
Just thinking about the legacy of publications like National Geographic, for example—which did their own internal audit of their archives several years ago—they themselves deemed that their coverage for most of their publication’s existence was racist and colonial.
And, I think a part of that dynamic was that you had photographers from the U.S. or from Europe who could travel the world and photograph people who would maybe never see their images in the final published outlet.
So, there was this disconnect. Now, that is very different because even a single individual from the smallest village in any country can actually have a massive platform if they speak up online.
Lewis: And it’s really beautiful to hear that feedback because now you can understand how your images, your visual choices, the photographers you’re working with, how that’s being viewed. You couldn’t do that before.
SSTK: Let’s talk about misrepresentation for a bit. What does misrepresentation look like? When can we say when someone or something is being misrepresented?
Wise: We have to recognize that there’s a lot of skill involved in making pictures. There’s a lot of technical skill, a lot of creative ability. And that can be a dangerous thing if you don’t fully understand who or what you’re photographing.
If you don’t take the time—before you ever pull out your camera—to do research and to really understand, especially historically marginalized communities, then you may not even be aware that you’re misrepresenting that community.
A lot of it comes down to context. And this is a tricky thing because I think a lot of instances of misrepresentation are not even necessarily intrinsic to the photograph itself. The way that that image gets used, the way it gets contextualized with a caption or how it gets used in a campaign, that can be taken out of context in a way that completely misrepresents it.
SSTK: Do photographers of color have specific struggles that the general public may not realize?
Lewis: People can have stereotypical ideas like, You’re a good photographer but can you work on this level? And, a lot of them can. There are a bunch of amazing photographers of color that can work at these high levels if given those opportunities.
But, not having access to those resources or not having the gear because they don’t have the parents or the backing or the funding to access whatever it is they might need to achieve that level to show that they can do that, that makes it really tough.
Wise: I do feel like photographers of color are a lot more likely to be starting at some disadvantage for a lot of the reasons that Brent described. But photographers of color are not a monolith and one of the things that’s so beautiful about the Diversify Photo community is that it is such a diverse community.
There’s such a range of experiences that people have. I think that, as an organization, we believe that the media should reflect the diversity of the world, and we make better media when we have more diversity behind the camera, in front of the camera, and in those rooms with people who are making those decisions.
SSTK: So much truth in that. So, seven years. What are the most notable challenges that Diversify Photo has or are still dealing with?
Wise: I feel like the challenge is that we want to do so much and this is a volunteer thing that all of us on our team, Brent and I included, do on the side on top of our full-time jobs.
Our team—David Barreda, Salgu Wissmath, and Alex Sanchez—is amazing, but it’s just the five of us and there’s so much more that we want to do and so many more programs and opportunities that we see that can benefit our community. We just have limited time because this is a labor of love on top of our full-time jobs.
Lewis: True. I would say that that’s the biggest hurdle. I think in the pre-2020 days, it was getting folks to understand, but I think they now understand why the point of view matters and why it matters to have diverse folks around you when it comes to covering stories and topics.
So now, like Andrea said, our biggest challenge is we want to do more, but it’s a really, really tight-knit squad.
Wise: The first few years, we were more focused on the editors using the database. That’s where we put most of our effort on—how do we create a resource that’s going to be very useful for editors to find photographers that they don’t already know?
In the more recent years, while that’s still our core, we’ve shifted a lot of our energy towards, once you’ve been added to our list, once you’re part of this community, what are your needs? And what can we do to help build you up? Wherever you are in your career, how can we help you get to that next rung on the ladder?
SSTK: How do donations from entities like Shutterstock impact collectives like Diversify Photo?
Wise: I think that people often forget that there’s web hosting fees, legal fees, we have to pay our accountant, we have to pay our business insurance, there’s filing fees—there’s a lot of expenses.
So, literally every single donation that we receive, that’s hugely impactful for us. And getting a donation like the $10,000 from Shutterstock, that immediately allows us to look at what we want to do for the year.
Now, we have so many more opportunities open for us in terms of programming that we can then put some funding behind.
License these image via Alisha Vasudev, Cecil McDonald Jr, kevkevtruong, German Vazquez, Alfield Reeves, Jyotsna Bhamidipati, and sophialiphotography.
Lewis: Been there . . . just keep going. I know it’s tough. Yes, the roadblocks are there. We all know them. We’ve seen them. Keep pushing. Your voice matters. What you have to say matters.
The way that you see the world is different than anyone else out there because you are unique. The way that you think, the way that you process moments, and the way that you see, no one else sees that. So yeah, it’s going to take a little pushing.
Don’t make the work for other people—be true to yourself. Choose a work that you want to do and go out and find those folks who are going to appreciate it. They’re going to love it. And they’re going to feel the same way that you feel about it.
And once you find those people, oh, it’s wildfire. It’s on.
Shutterstock shares this deep passion for inclusivity and equal opportunity, and through the Create Fund, we donated $10,000 to help Diversify Photo keep supporting historically excluded artists.
But it doesn’t stop there, and it doesn’t have to be $10,000.
Diversify Photo is run by volunteers, and they’re open for donations all year round. Your $5 could help support a collective that offers programs for so many photographers of color across the US.
Browse through Diversify Photo’s vetted photographers who are also now part of Shutterstock’s Create Fund roster:
License this cover image via German Vazquez.
This post was originally published onSeptember 25, 2024
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