The saying necessity is the mother of all invention doesn’t seem so far-fetched when it comes to the story of Iwaria. Scouting the internet to find stories on how the Iwaria CEO Aurelle Noutahi settled on the idea of Africa-focused stock images.
Aurelle was looking for images that depicted people and scenarios familiar to her target audience. Most of the results returned negative.
“And even when we got positive results of black people, the style and environment usually weren’t African,” her business partner, Médrid Barrincio, who oversaw the development of the apps, recalls.
In 2016, Aurelle Noutahi and Co-founder Basile Barrincio decided to fill the large gap, creating Iwaria, a stock photo platform that provides authentic and high-quality African images.
The photos include collections such as I love sports, transportation, architecture, education, and coronavirus section among others to offer a wide choice for users.
The platform obtains most of its photos from contributions around the web. According to an episode on the Africa Calling podcast, Iwaria currently has 500 contributors who share their images on the participative platform.
Based on the users’ stats of the platform, we identify topics our users need, organizing photo shoots to feed the platform with these themes where the content is lacking,” says Barrincio on Africa Calling Podcast.
How to Upload your Photos on Iwaria?
Just like Unsplash and other free-to-use stock images platforms, Iwaria sources its photos from contributors who submit under the Creative Commons Zero license.
The downside with CC0 is dishonest contributors submitting copyrighted material they own no rights to and Iwaria is careful to include detailed terms of use to extricate itself from the potential legal complications.
To be a contributor, create an account (choose to login with Facebook, Twitter, or Google) and click on the upload button to submit a photo. Make sure you read the upload guidelines so that your images don’t get rejected.
Iwaria is well though idea if you are a blogger, artist, or creator looking for Africa-themed stock images to use. The other collection which would be highly appreciated is a collection of the most popular cities across the continent with its’s beauty and what makes them unique. Let us know if you are going to embrace Iwaria and it will become your go-to platform when you are looking for African-themed stock images.
Featured Image: Downloaded from Iwaria
