Press Release

September 2007

diverseimages™ Goes Live

New Stock Photo Library Focuses on People of Color

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--diverseimages™, a new image library dedicated to representing people of color, launched this week. This resource comes at a time of increasing demand to represent the world’s diverse populations in various media. Yet, the supply of quality photos lags far behind the demand. The image archives, accessed at diverseimages.net, was developed to fill this void. “This limit in available quality photos isn’t just for African-Americans,” explains Chi Modu, diverseimages Founder & CEO, “but for Asians, Latinos, and others.”

diverseimages has nearly a quarter of a million images of entertainment, sports, political, lifestyle, and music figures, as well as travel photos from around the globe. From icons such as Malcolm X, Tupac Shakur, Bob Marley, Muhammed Ali, and Marvin Gaye to contemporary figures such as Barack Obama, P. Diddy, and Barry Bonds, diverseimages is a digital who’s who of people of color. The archive also includes travel images taken in locations such as Cambodia, Nigeria, South Africa, Morocco, Jamaica, and Costa Rica, that showcase the rich diversity of the world in ways rarely seen.

These photos are not just of subjects of color. Most were also taken by photographers of color, which explains in part why the images succeed in capturing the true essence of the people being photographed.

Another factor that sets di apart from other image libraries is that its founder and CEO is a photographer, not just a businessperson. Modu, after graduating from Rutgers University with a degree in business, followed his passion and attended NY’s International Center of Photography. He got his start in the early 1990’s shooting some of the most iconic figures of the hip hop movement, including P. Diddy, Tupac, and Queen Latifah, when many were just scraping by in a genre that had yet to gain wide appeal.

Today, Modu is not only committed to providing a much-needed resource to the advertising, newspaper, magazine, TV, and movie industries, he is also giving photographers of color and others a much-needed place to showcase and monetize their photos. In addition to adding 100 new photos daily to the site from their own archives, diverseimages is actively recruiting photographers of color to add to their network.

 

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