Improving diversity and representation in the outdoors, one photo at a time

It’s no secret that people of color, people with disabilities and the LGBTQ+ community lack representation in most forms of media, from advertising to feature films to the relatively new field of influencer marketing. This remains true even as public opinion is shifting. In recent surveys of U.S. consumers, 61% said they believed diversity in advertising was important (A. Guttmann, 2019). Surveys also found that a lack of identity representation in ads causes consumers to stop supporting a brand (Statista Research Department, 2020). 

The outdoor industry and conservation fields face their own challenges with predominantly white workforces and marketing that has traditionally featured white, able-bodied individuals. But a new commitment to equity and inclusion is taking hold and new solutions are emerging from creative leaders like the entrepreneurs at Nappy, a stock photography company on a mission to improve representation. 

Nappy provides beautiful, high-resolution photos of Black and Brown people—for free—to make it easier for brands, organizations and agencies to be more inclusive and intentional about representation. Since launching in 2017, Nappy has seen more than one million downloads of its stock photography, by some of the world’s biggest brands. But it’s not just the big brands looking to create a more inclusive narrative. Nonprofits, outdoor programs and nature-based organizations often depend on stock photography to create educational and marketing materials. Images of people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and people with disabilities in nature are few and far between.

We’re thrilled to partner with Nappy’s Studio service to add more photos of people of color in the outdoors to their extensive portfolio. We’re featuring some of these new photos on our website and social media; you can find more, freely available, at Nappy.co. If a picture is worth a thousand words, we hope these photos will go a long way in creating a more inclusive outdoor story—and ultimately, a more inclusive children and nature movement.

We sat down with Jacques Bastien, CEO of Boogie Brands, and Tolulope (Tolu) Bamwo, CEO of Nappy, to talk about their creative approach to tackling diversity and representation.

FNN: Tell us a little bit about yourselves and how Nappy came to be:

Tolu: In the late 80s, my family moved from Nigeria to New York, where I was born and raised. Being creative and telling Black stories is an important part of my Nigerian heritage. Telling visual stories, through photography and video production, has been my creative outlet since the day I borrowed Jacques’ camera while we were students at SUNY (State University of New York Albany).

Tolu Bamwo

Jacques: I’ve been a creative dabbler most of my life, even before I started running Boogie Brands with my wife, Dahcia. Boogie Brands includes Nappy stock photography and SHADE, our influencer marketing agency. I was born in Haiti and came to the U.S. at age 10. We had limited resources, so I spent a lot of time at home with my siblings and my dad. I got into breakdancing (which later inspired the Boogie Brands name). Entrepreneurship was a passion. I started dabbling in computer repair. In college, I started doing graphic design and taking photos of events. I learned to cut hair and started working as a barber on campus. 

Jacques Bastien

Tolu: That’s how Jacques and I met. I was getting a haircut, Jacques was telling me about his work and asking me questions about my interests. We became friends and he lent me his camera, which was the start of my photography career. Later he offered me a job with his new marketing agency, Boogie Brands, but I declined.

Jacques:  The timing wasn’t right, but as Dahcia and I were building our marketing agency, we would hire Tolu whenever we needed a photographer. As Boogie Brands grew, we became much more aware of the lack of diversity in the influencer marketing space and in stock photography. We launched SHADE to help creators of color build their digital influence and help brands stay relevant with diverse audiences. We then started working with Tolu on a side project to produce stock photos of Black and Brown people for commercial use. That side project took off and became Nappy. When the Nappy site started seeing 10,000 visitors a day, we knew we were filling a need. Tolu took the Nappy concept and has expanded it to include Nappy Studio, branded partnerships and more.

FNN:  You talked about Nappy stock photography filling a need. Tell us more about the problem you are trying to solve:

Jacques: Marketers, creators, media people—we have an important job as we decide what imagery goes on billboards, in ads and in marketing materials. We influence perceptions about who participates in certain activities and goes into certain careers. Lack of representation is a huge problem. Creating high quality photos that normalize Black and Brown people in all settings and sectors is mission-driven work for us. We share the culture and stories of Black and Brown families, elders, leaders, influencers and business people that are often not told or seen.

Tolu: Between the ages of 10 and 18, I visited family in Nigeria often and traveled in Africa, where all of the billboards and marketing material featured Black and Brown people. I wanted to recreate that in the U.S. I had been shooting photos of Black and Brown people for years and came to realize that creating those visual stories and making them available to the world had been my mission all along. Creating Nappy was a natural progression and an important step in the trajectory of our work at a time when the need for representation was becoming more and more crucial.

Jacques: The Black Lives Matter movement was an important influence. Before the movement, I’d had negative experiences with the police. I was scared and mad, but I’d think to myself, “it’s better than Haiti.” In Haiti, the dream is to get to America. When you get here, the dream changes; the goal is to survive. As bad things kept happening to me, to my friends and to Black and Brown people across the U.S. and I knew that creativity and entrepreneurship could be powerful tools. I talked to my wife and said, “I don’t want to do another thing or take another step that doesn’t do something to address these problems.” Black Lives Matter shaped me from a passion and mission standpoint and shaped how our businesses have evolved.

FNN: There are intentional efforts underway to improve representation in the outdoors, but Nappy has been doing this for some time.

Jacques: We were always interested in outdoor lifestyle imagery, but our work with you (Children & Nature Network) has been a catalyst to move even further into this category. Our initial plan for Nappy was to provide advertisers and marketers with studio quality photos at an affordable price, but we’ve evolved to also work directly with organizations trying to make a difference. It feels really good when an organization comes to us and commissions photographs that will help change perceptions in their sector of the world. 

Tolu: At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, my news feed was full of stories about people spending more time outside. Very few of these stories featured Black and Brown people, even though I knew many who were deeply engaged in the outdoors. This got me thinking about how we are portrayed in the outdoors. It sparked a photoshoot in the Catskill Mountains with my friend Adham Stewart and his dog. Adham is a teacher and naturalist who helps kids get more involved in nature. It really hit me that if I looked up something like, “how do I get into hiking or kayaking,” I’d rarely see someone who looked like me. Around this time, we were working on a relaunch of Nappy. The first photos we published were of Black and Brown men, including Adham, in the outdoors. At the time I didn’t worry too much about commercial interest in these photos; I focus on creating photos that the world needs to see.

FNN: Tell us a little bit about your creative approach:

Jacques: We go through a process of discovery and pre-production to develop mood, themes and various scenes. We research what people are used to seeing so that we can recreate those images with Black and Brown people. We analyze what’s missing in the stock photography landscape. We give our models ideas but also give them room to guide images that will be culturally relevant.

Tolu: We prefer real people and real experiences over professional models. If we need pictures of a group of friends, we hire people who are actually friends. We try to help our subjects forget about the camera. “Just live life,” and we’ll capture it.

FNN: Any observations from our shoot?

Tolu: We liked the approach of having teens, elders, young kids and different kinds of families. The teens were very involved and had no problem telling us what would and wouldn’t work. But compared to the younger kids, they sometimes looked posed and needed some guidance. The little kids, the babies—they had this deep affinity and interest in the natural world. They didn’t care at all about the cameras, they just played and explored and had fun. They were the stars of the shoot and it was interesting to see that by the teen years, kids had lost some of that natural curiosity and awe.

FNN: What are your future hopes for Nappy?

Jacques: It’s humbling to be at this point and to make a living in a way that makes a difference for people. It keeps me going. If we keep growing, I’d like to think that at some point there will be no need for Nappy and SHADE because we’re living in an inclusive world free of biases and prejudice.

Tolu: Agreed. And I like to think of us being synonymous with Google photo search; when you come to Nappy, you’ll find photos of anything you can think of, all featuring Black and Brown people. We will have addressed the lack of representation with a better, more inclusive story, one photo at a time.

Special thanks to Children & Nature Network creative director Kelly McManus and Boogie Brands/Nappy executives Jacques Bastien and Tolu Bamwo for bringing this photo collection to life.

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