Photographers Are on a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits

A volunteer group called WikiPortraits is working to address Wikipedia's issue of featuring outdated and unflattering portraits by providing high-quality, openly licensed images. Since 2024, they have covered global festivals, taken thousands of images, and improved representation of underrepresented individuals, though challenges with funding and media credentials remain. 404 Media reports: This portrait problem stems from Wikipedia's mission to provide free reliable information. All media on the site must be openly licensed, so that anyone can use it free of charge. That, in turn, means that most photos of notable people on the site are of notably poor quality. "No professional photographers ever have their photos on Wikipedia, because they want to make money from the photos," said Jay Dixit, a writing professor and amateur Wikipedia photographer. "It's actually the norm that most celebrities have poor photos on Wikipedia, if they have photos at all. It's just some civilian at an airport being like, 'Oh my god, it's Pete Davidson,' click with an iPhone."

Dixit is part of a team of volunteer photographers, called WikiPortraits, that's trying to fix that problem. "It's been in the back of our minds for quite a while now," said Kevin Payravi, one of WikiPortraits' cofounders. "Last year, finally, we decided to make this a reality, and we got a couple of credentials for Sundance 2024 [a major film festival]. We sent a couple photographers there, we set up a portrait studio, and that was our first organized effort here in the U.S. to take good quality photos of people for Wikipedia."

Since last January, WikiPortraits photographers have covered around 10 global festivals and award ceremonies, and taken nearly 5,000 freely-licensed photos of celebrity attendees. And the celebrity attendees are often quite excited about it. [...] WikiPortraits photos are currently used on Wikipedia articles in over 120 languages, and they're viewed up to 80 million times per month from those pages alone. In January, for example, Payravi said that over 1,500 WikiPortraits photos were used on articles that collectively received 140 million views. Many WikiPortraits photos have also been used by a variety of news outlets around the world, including CNN Brasil, Times of Israel, and multiple non-English-language smaller news organizations. "[N]ot being an official news or photo agency means WikiPortraits sometimes faces problems getting media credentials to cover events," notes 404 Media. "Funding poses another main challenge."

"Photographers must already own a professional-quality camera, and usually have to cover the cost of getting to events and at least part of their lodging. Although WikiPortraits sometimes receives rapid grants from the Wikimedia Foundation and private donors to cover costs, Payravi said he still likes to run a 'tight ship.'"

Reasons

[phantomfive]

Interesting. I always assumed it was because Wikipedia wanted to show pictures of people as they are, not some brushed-up publicity photo that looks nothing like the actual person.

Re:

[nicubunu]

You still want pictures to be properly focused, exposed and framed, have decent resolution and such

Re:

[tlhIngan]

A lot of it has to deal with the intricacies of copyright law. If you're a photographer, you own the copyright to the image unless you were hired to take that image (as a work for hire).

Many celebrities have been sued successfully because they took some photographer's photo of themselves and spread it around - not realizing that even though the photo was of them, they didn't own the copyright. So photographers then sued and made out like bandits.

As such, it also means the photos on Wikipedia are likely shot

Re: Reasons

[Arnold Reinhold]

Given the popularity and longevity of Wikipedia, I would think more celebrities would be willing to release a good quality photo of themselves under an open license. Older celebritiesy especially might want their Wikipedia bios to include an image of their younger selves. Wikipedia discourages people from editing articles about themselves, but adding a properly licensed and appropriate photo is allowed.

Re:

[2TecTom]

Intricacies of copyright? You mean the corruption and complication of copyright law and the death of the public's domain, don't you?

Re:

[ZiggyZiggyZig]

My feeling too. I for one am not welcoming our new semi-professional-looking portrait overlords!

Re:

[Dan East]

I always thought it was because the images have to essentially be given to Wikmedia, thus they almost had to have been taken for that purpose or already be public domain.

Then I've always felt that in some cases they have shown the bias inherent to a lot of Wikipedia, where a person disliked by an editor just so happens to have a not-so-flattering photo chosen to represent them. You absolutely see that in mainstream news articles.

Celebrity pictures are the least of its problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wikipedia is cancer when it comes to factual information. It's been taken over by psychos that have no issues pushing lies at the behest of governments and corporations.

Nope!

[Caldonia!]

I can't make myself give a hoot about celebs. If they paid well, *maybe* I'd help them with that, but I'd never do it if it cost me anything. Scientists, any truly altruistic human, if I could help I would. Celebs, they'd be paying me plenty even to change their tire on the road. I'd be more likely to stop and moon them.

How do you edit a wiki?

[stealth_finger]

I propose a counter campaign to replace every celebrity image with the worst one publicly available.

Re:

[taustin]

Edit Wars [wikipedia.org] are hardly a new thing on Wikipedia, the popularity contest for factoids [npr.org] that prohibits actual facts.

They're well equipped to protect their sacred cows.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

They will all get deleted anyway, most likely. Wikipedia high level clerics love deleting stuff that people put a lot of effort into.

Quite the Opposite

[Kunedog]

Wikipedia's issue of featuring outdated and unflattering portraits

I (and probably many of the subjects) have often wished WP could just use older, unreproducible, much more flattering pictures of now 60+ (or even 40+) celebs from the heyday of their careers instead the often up-to-date, hi-res (with problem-free copyright) images snapped by at a convention or in public.

Re:

[Samare]

Same thing for IMDB. It seems that it usually gets fixed some time after their death.

Doesn't make sense

[PPH]

What celebrity doesn't have publicity head shots available? Most likely produced as a work for hire by a professional photographer. Just pick a flattering one out and send it to Wikipedia.

Re:

[taustin]

I'm sure they would cheerfully use such photos if the celebrities would release them under an appropriate Creative Commons license.

How many celebs do you know of who will do (or have done) that?

(And their best shots often belong to the studios, being publicity shots for specific films or TV shows. And they are not going to release their IP under a CC license.)

Re: Doesn't make sense

[dpille]

The arbitrarity is my favorite thing about Wikipedia. If it's not deleting someone's painstaking and factual entry for "relevance," it's deciding they must have their own picture that complies with their own preferred license. Of all the things that are difficult to learn about elsewhere on the internet, including many of those things deemed irrelevant by the club, what a celebrity looks like is not one of them.

Pick a selfie from their social media presence. The odds that that celebrity ever asks for it t

Re:

[thegarbz]

Having something available does not mean it is free for public use without license. It's very likely that the celebrities do not own unlimited rights to do with their photos as they please either. Copyright is far more complicated than that, and the issue is not what can you put on Wikipedia, but rather what meets the license requirements to put on Wikipedia.

It's similar to the bullshit of being able to watch football on TV at home, but in many cases needing a license to put football on a TV in a pub. Copyr

And Angry White Men On A Mission To Prevent That

[thesjaakspoiler]

How dare these so called photographers try editing those pages!

MIsses the Point

[battingly]

The biggest problem with Wikipedia has always been a lack of good images to illustrate and elucidate the article's subject. Especially bad is maps. Of all the pictures that are lacking in Wikipedia, celebrity photos are the absolute lowest priority.

Re:

[jfdavis668]

Found a really good map in Wikipedia. Only problem is it had no key, so I couldn't be sure of what the color areas meant. It was supposed to be obvious, but I wasn't positive. And it looks like it is the only place the map exists. So I couldn't use it, since I didn't want to make wrong conclusions on the colors.

Re:

[pipatron]

My pet peeve is their ridiculous stance on screenshots, which are often something like 320x200 pixels because they are afraid of infringing on some copyright. That's a way stricter reading of the law than what is necessary.

Commons:WikiPortraits

[Meneth]

They have a page on Wikimedia Commons, but strangely it is not linked from their .org domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/... [wikimedia.org]

The proof is in the photo and not equipment

[BrendaEM]

It's foolish to draw a line in the sand, and judge a photo only by what equipment they use. Buying an expensive camera does not make you a good photographer. Each photo should be judged on its own merit.