Wikipedia is one of the most valuable repositories of information ever created by humanity. Having your own Wikipedia page has become a kind of status symbol—proof that someone is important enough to enter the historical record. But, ironically, having your face in a Wikipedia page is often not flattering at all.
In fact, Wikipedia portraits, often included in Wikipedia articles about celebrities, are so famously bad that there’s an Instagram page dedicated to them. Take the Wikipedia portraits of American actor Jay Olcutt Sanders performing an ancient Greek play in 2009, or English footballer Kyle Bartley with what looks to be a referee’s finger in his mouth.
Lots of portraits on Wikipedia are also many years old. Comedian Joe Pesci’s Wikipedia photo, for example, is from 2009. Jeanne Tripplehorn, who starred in Criminal Minds and also won an Emmy for her portrayal of Jackie Kennedy, has a Wikipedia photo from 1992.
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. Dixit, for example, found Jeremy Strong of Succession at a New York showing of the new The Apprentice and asked to take a new headshot of him for Wikipedia.
“His publicist said no,” Dixit said. “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.’ So he stood and posed, and I got a shot of him.” Strong’s old photo was from 2014.
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.
“It’s become sort of a mini photo agency that is accessible for organizations that can’t afford Getty [Images],” said Jennifer 8. Lee, another WikiPortraits cofounder, referring to one of the biggest stock and news photo agencies in the world. WikiPortraits photographers both run temporary photo studios at events for celebrities to come have their photos taken, and roam red carpets to snap candids.
“Our priority is, of course, Wikipedia,” Payravi said. “We’ll often check to see existing coverage on Wikipedia. If we’re at a film festival, and we see people who have a Wikipedia article, but don’t have a photo, that’s going to become our priority.”
Sriya Sarkar, a videographer by trade who has covered three festivals for WikiPortraits, said that taking photos of underrepresented people was also a major goal.
“ Kevin and Jenny are constantly trying to find ways to address the diversity blind spots that are in Wikipedia and helping to correct that,” Sarkar said. “We need more high quality portraits of notable figures in the public domain, and of course, most people of color who are notable figures in the public domain are not represented in Wikipedia. It’s not just about photos. The diversity angle is a really important reason why this project is being done.”
But not being an official news or photo agency means WikiPortraits sometimes faces problems getting media credentials to cover events.
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, for example, last year featured a Native American woman who builds robots that teach Indigenous languages. Lee thought she would be a good candidate for a new Wikipedia page, and applied to the conference to take her photo, but was rejected on the basis of the conference only accepting “editorial media.”
“ I don’t think Wikimedia is traditional press, but I do consider it media,” Lee said. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”
Other events were often more willing to grant some form of press credentials.
“ Wikipedia itself is a very big brand name,” Payravi said. “Oftentimes when we apply for credentials, they ask us, ‘What’s your circulation?’ They ask that because they’re expecting a news publication or a magazine—and then we say several billion, so they’re often pretty willing to credential us.”
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.”
But over 30 people have taken on the job, and for some of them, it’s deeply personal. Sarkar grew up hearing about the Jaipur Literature Festival, and this past January got enough funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to make the trip and cover it for WikiPortraits.
“I got to take photos, yes, but I also got to hear from diplomats and thought leaders and culture makers from my culture,” Sarkar said. “That meant a lot to me—to be able to bring these people to an audience that may not be able to reach them, even if it’s just through a photo. Wikipedia has a lot of space to expand and really diversify their database, and I think by taking photos and going to these events, it’s helpful for both the Wikipedia community and obviously all the millions of people who use them.”
In 2024, WikiPortraits focused largely on film festivals. Payravi said this year he wanted to cover a wider variety of events. That includes events like the Jaipur Literature Festival and CES Las Vegas, a major tech conference, that WikiPortraits photographers had covered in January.
“ This is cheesy, but a picture’s worth a thousand words,” Payravi said. “The picture you see that comes up first in Google results is Wikipedia—that’s the thing people are going to see first and recognize you as. I think it’s very important for people to have a good photo of themselves for their online presence. And it’s a really fun way for an amateur photographer like me to both give back and also get to see my photographs used and showcased. I hope it’s also good for the people we’re photographing.”
