simplyann.net

I have a question. Do you have trouble finding quality images of people of color in culturally relevant settings?

When I created my first personal website in 2003 I spent months looking for the right images of people of color. I pored over Getty Images and Corbis – the only two stock photography sites I knew of – looking for someone who looked like me doing something I would be doing. That is, an uncomfortable high school senior who would be geeking out over new Bible covers, or standing around at lunch laughing with her diverse group of friends (we were the united colors of homeroom #161).

I soon realized these images did not exist. And I don’t think they exist today. Is there a market for this? Heck yeah. The millions of young people who are bombarded with fake-ass, photoshopped, oversexed, overwhelmingly white standards of beauty. While the 6 fat white men controlling the major media outlets of the USA* may be forcing these images down the pipeline, I believe that the subculture of people who are actively creating their own stories, music, videos, photographs and other forms of media are yearning for something real.

Why would these images be useful? If I wanted to run a marketing campaign in South Los Angeles, a den of consumption and capitalism if there ever was one, I would need culturally relevant images to attract the kids in that 20 mile area between downtown and the south bay. I would need images that showed them enjoying a certain beverage, a certain movie or tv show, a certain career not some smiling blond chick with too-white teeth gleaming from a dilapidated billboard on the back of some abandoned building. I see sad attempts (mostly by McDonalds and Boost Mobile) at grabbing attention everyday.

I’m sure there are many other examples. Capitalism, for all the systemic damage it has done to communities of color and working-class people the world over, is the main reason I think these images should exist. There are far more people who don’t look like the mainstream beauties than there are mainstream beauties. You want to make even more money, I would think you would try to catch them somehow. And images are a powerful, immediate medium.

Do you as a designer, artist, illustrator or person-who-uses-images-in-his-or-her-day-to-day-work come across the need for culturally relevant images? Do you think this is a major lack in our media? If so, how should we go about filling the need. If not, why not?

Please feel free to engage. I know there are smarter people out there who know more about this stuff than I do. Also, lurking is soooo 2008!

*Okay, I don’t know if there are 6.