Getting awesome images about everyday life in Africa is not hard, the problem is the images are scattered all over the internet and is time wasting for a user to search from engine to engine to find what they are looking for.
Also getting the rightful owners of the images for proper attribution is not easy and users might land in copyright suits especially if the images are used for public consumption. Shutterstock settles the worries of artists looking for western and European scenery and also has a lot of images on and about Africa.
Founded in 2013 by Moussa Fofana, Celine Crespin Maguette MBow and Alex Poblah, Yeelenpix wants to bring together all great images on and about Africa in one place. Open for image buyers and photographers, Yeelenpix light for West Africa’s Bambara and Pix for photos, aims to be the biggest bank of world images and illustrations on Africa.
Yeelenpix, whose purpose is to promote and develop a new image of Africa sells royalty free images for a standard license and rights managed photos for a premium license with prices fixed according to use with different prices for images used to illustrate magazines, images used in brochures, reports or presentations and those used in websites, product packaging and posters.
“We also provide photo reports services, advertising shoots, specific sporting and business events covers,” says the firm on its site. “We highlight Africa today in its variety of landscapes, multiple population, economic diversity, richness scale, and cultural news. The time of stereotypical and bad quality images of Africa is over.You now have a place to find ideal African images for all your projects.”
According to the firm, which launched its version 2 late May, it has a selective choice of photographers and contributors based on the quality of their work and their professionalism and is a platform dedicated to talented artists to ensure buyers get the quality and class they deserve.
“YeelenPix is surrounded by a community of talented photographers and designers to offer a wide range of pictures with a strong African identity. This community interacts and exchange. We want to represent African photography in its great diversity across the continent. The goal is to create jobs and enable them to live their art,” the firm says.
The Yeelenpix crew headed by Ivorian Fofana as the CEO has Africa at its heart. In a time when Africa is portrayed online as continent of wars, HIV-Aids, poverty, famines and diseases, Fofana’s team are building a positive image of Africa.
With over 10,000 pictures and over 40 photographers, Yeelenpix faces competion from various sites such as Nigeria’s Foto.com.ng which also claims to have over 10,000 African images, Nairobi-based AfricaKnows and a profileration of other sites majorly in Southern Africa and abroad such as Afripics.com, Karoo Images, the African Image Library, Mimages among others.
