Visit a celebrity’s Wikipedia page and there’s a good chance you’ll be greeted by a blurry, outdated, or unflattering photo.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They’ve brought portrait studios to major events like the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, and Cannes, helping to refresh outdated Wikipedia photos or fill in the blanks for biographies missing images altogether.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.”
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