Kwaku Alston

Kwaku has photographed some of the most famous faces of our time–from Oscar® and Grammy® winners to Barack Obama and the First Family. His many and diverse clients include The New York Times Magazine, TIME, and ESSENCE Magazine, global brands like Amgen, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Target, and Verizon, and media giants such as Universal Studios, Disney, Amazon, Sony Music, and ESPN. His portraits have a fresh, unaffected feel, and yet they celebrate the extraordinariness of his subjects, striking a balance between contemporary documentary photography and classic celebrity portraiture.

After graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Kwaku launched his career in New York City, where he began shooting for major magazines and ad agencies while in his early 20s. Today he is based in New York and Los Angeles, and his photos have appeared on everything from movie posters to the covers of best selling books, and in advertising spreads for international brands such as Apple and HBO. Kwaku has also partnered with a variety of charities and nonprofits, including the Design-A-Cure Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, the Black AIDS Institute, and the Smiley Faces Foundation. Giving both his work and his time, he traveled to Ethiopia to document a shoe drop by TOMS Shoes, which donates footwear to children in need worldwide.

Kwaku’s world travels continue to inform his work, and reminds him that curiosity, encouragement, and sincerity are universal languages. As the director of photography on a documentary titled In Search of Voodoo, he has made multiple trips to West Africa. He is inspired to bridge still photography and filmmaking to tell great stories.

Shawn Theodore

Shawn Theodore (b. 1970, Germany) is an award-winning photographer, whose work opens broad conversations regarding the role of the photographer in the shaping of agency and imagery, engages in new forms of storytelling, and impacts the trajectory of the collective Black consciousness.

Carmen Chan

Carmen is a Los Angeles-based photographer, director, and mentor, committed to building an equitable and inclusive future through sharing stories about underrepresented artists and communities, and supporting the career advancement of BIPOC photographers. She worked as production coordinator on films and television shows like Heroes, before beginning her career in photography, creating images for brands and publications like: adidas Originals, Beats by Dre, Marriott Hotels, Soho House, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CEREAL Magazine. Carmen was selected as an inaugural Adobe Lightroom Ambassador and as a finalist on the inaugural Lit List. Her work has been featured in The Fader, BOOOOOOOM, aPhotoEditor, the PDN Photo Annual, and VSCO.

Diversify Photo

Diversify Photo is a community of BIPOC and non-western photographers, editors, and visual producers working to break with the predominantly colonial and patriarchal eye through which history and the mass media has seen and recorded the images of our time. Our international online database is used by editors at major media outlets seeking to diversify their rosters of visual storytellers. We also create networking, exhibiting, speaking, community-building, and resource-sharing opportunities for our members.

Photoville

Photoville is a New York-based non-profit organization that works to promote a wider understanding and increased access to the art of photography and visual storytelling by producing a free annual festival, amplifying impactful narratives, and connecting artists to a wide global audience by activating accessible public spaces via large scale exhibitions.

Proudly devoted to cultivating strategic partnerships and creative collaborations with community spirit, UPI approaches its mission of cultivating a wide, diverse audience for powerful photographic narratives by working closely with visual artists, city agencies, nonprofit organizations and educators worldwide to create new exhibition and public art opportunities that showcase thought-provoking, challenging, and exceptional photography. For more information about Photoville visit, www.photoville.com