The Everyday Projects uses photography to challenge stereotypes that distort people's understanding of the world. They are creating new generations of storytellers and audiences that recognize the need for multiple perspectives in portraying the cultures that define them.

They are a global community of visual storytellers — documentary photographers, journalists, artists, and more — all committed to using imagery to combat harmful misperceptions and to rise above persistent inequality. As a nonprofit, they work to provide opportunities for their global community and to provide structure, support, and direction for the diverse and worldwide range of Everyday photography groups.

The photography of The Everyday Projects is featured regularly in the world’s leading publications and at exhibitions in international galleries and festivals. They work with dozens of schools to reach thousands of students through our visual literacy curriculum, partner with the World Press Photo Foundation to support the African Photojournalism Database, and produce original stories about photography for our publication Re-Picture. 

They believe in amplifying local voices and in shifting power away from monolithic narratives dominated by a Western, top-down approach to storytelling. They work toward a future of photojournalism and visual storytelling that is inclusive and anti-racist.

HISTORY

This grassroots movement began in 2012, when Peter DiCampo and Austin Merrill started Everyday Africa as an effort to present a more accurate depiction of life on the continent and to direct a critical eye toward the international media industry in which they worked. Everyday Africa’s emphasis on localized storytelling via social media has been a force for correcting journalism’s unbalanced history, providing greater context to international coverage of Africa, and promoting the work of African photojournalists. Its viral success inspired like-minded storytellers worldwide to start their own Everyday communities on Instagram, using photography to celebrate local norms and global commonalities. In 2014 the creators of a number of these projects came together to exhibit at Photoville in Brooklyn, meeting for the first time and forming The Everyday Projects.

From Latin America to Asia, Russia to the Middle East, Mumbai to the Bronx, the collective audience of The Everyday Projects is well over 1 million.