While working on Medusaas’ 365 Days of Diversity educational campaign, I encountered a frustrating and eye-opening problem: there are very few high-quality images of famous underrepresented people—including BIPOC and people with disabilities—available in the public domain. Photography plays a vital role in preserving history and shaping our understanding of the world. Unfortunately, many of these images remain locked behind paywalls, unavailable for use by nonprofits and educational institutions. This post will explore the challenges this creates, the long-term implications of restricted access, and potential solutions to make high-quality photos available in the public domain.
The Problem? Gatekeeping by Stock Photo Giants.
In researching this issue, it became apparent that many of the high-quality images, of famous people, who belong to underrepresented groups, are being held hostage by companies like Getty Images, Shutterstock, and Alamy. These photos are behind costly paywalls, which puts them out of reach for many nonprofits, educators, and smaller institutions. This gatekeeping prevents these organizations from showcasing diverse perspectives in their content, limiting educational opportunities and reinforcing harmful narratives.
The Short-Term Effects: Missing Educational Opportunities
The immediate impact of this lack of access is felt in classrooms, online learning resources, and nonprofit work. Teachers, nonprofit leaders, and content creators often rely on publicly available materials to highlight the significant contributions of underrepresented groups. When these photos aren’t available:
Inaccurate Representation: Educators and content creators are forced to rely on a limited pool of images, often resorting to outdated or stereotypical depictions, which can perpetuate harmful or oversimplified narratives about these communities.
Missed Opportunities for Inclusion: Without access to accurate and current images of BIPOC, Indigenous people, and people with disabilities, educational resources become less inclusive, denying students and the general public a more complete understanding of history and society.
Reduced Engagement: Visuals are essential for creating engaging content. Without a diverse set of images, the ability to create compelling, inclusive educational materials is significantly reduced, limiting the effectiveness of teaching and awareness campaigns.
The Long-Term Effects: Systemic Erasure and Inequality
In the long run, the lack of access to these resources creates a cycle of underrepresentation and inequality that has far-reaching consequences:
Historical Erasure: When images of BIPOC, Indigenous people, and individuals with disabilities aren’t readily available, their contributions and histories risk being forgotten or marginalized. This leads to an incomplete historical narrative where the achievements of these groups are overlooked or undervalued.
Perpetuation of Stereotypes: Limited access to diverse, authentic imagery means that the few available pictures are often based on stereotypes or narrow portrayals, reinforcing harmful misconceptions about these groups. Over time, this entrenches bias in media and education.
Cultural Isolation: The lack of representation in widely used educational and nonprofit materials fosters a sense of exclusion for people from underrepresented communities. Without seeing themselves accurately reflected, they may feel disconnected from the broader societal narrative.
Inequality in Opportunity: The paywalls that limit access to these images disproportionately affect nonprofits and educational institutions that already operate on tight budgets. This exacerbates inequality in access to educational resources, making it harder for smaller organizations to offer diverse, inclusive content.
How We Can Address the Issue
To resolve this problem, we need a multifaceted approach:
Advocating for Policy Change: Policymakers can work towards legislation that encourages the release of photos of underrepresented groups into the public domain, especially for educational use. This would ensure that these images are accessible to those who need them most.
Crowdsourcing Solutions: A public campaign to crowdsource photos of BIPOC, Indigenous peoples, and people with disabilities could help build a new, freely available collection. Photographers could contribute their work to this initiative, ensuring a diverse and authentic representation of these groups.
Encouraging Stock Photo Companies to Make Concessions: Companies like Getty Images, Alamy, and Shutterstock could be incentivized to create nonprofit and educational access programs, allowing the use of these images at reduced or no cost.
Creating Grants for Licensing Fees: Foundations and nonprofits can collaborate to create grant programs that help smaller organizations and educational institutions cover the cost of licensing these crucial images.
A Call for Action and Inclusivity
The lack of access to diverse, high-quality photography of underrepresented groups is more than just an inconvenience—it’s a barrier to inclusion, education, and equality. Ensuring that these images are available in the public domain isn’t just a matter of convenience; it’s essential to creating a more equitable future. By working together to push for changes in policy and corporate behavior, we can ensure that the stories of BIPOC, Indigenous peoples, and individuals with disabilities are accurately told and widely shared.
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For more insights on this and similar topics, be sure to listen to our podcast, Monster in My Closet, and explore our other blog posts, including Monster in My Closet Show Notes. Let's continue the conversation on how we can create a more inclusive future.
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