MP: One of TONL's features is the Narratives Section, which highlights the personal stories of your photo subjects. What was the reasoning behind including that?
KO: Joshua and I are huge believers in storytelling and being authentic. We really wanted to find a way to add an educational element [to the imagery].
"We wanted to take the narrative back and allow those people to speak for themselves."
Most [stock] pictures you just take and use for whatever you want, but you don't really know the story behind the person [in them]. And in a society where we may look at people's skin colors and immediately judge them or associate them with a negative stereotype, we wanted to take the narrative back and allow those people to speak for themselves.
We're always being asked, "Where did you find these people?" The reality is all of the people that you're seeing on our site are our friends. We only recently started tapping into people that we don't know — most notably, Nodumo. She reached out to us on Twitter and asked if we [offered] any pictures of people who are albino. When we don't have something yet, we are very open to suggestions, because it's a community. We ended up sharing her narrative. We reached out to her like, "You're going to be our first Albino model!" We believe in the power of the narratives.
MP: What is your approach when it comes to creating collections?
KO: First and foremost, it's really important to us to be of the times. One of the things we noticed when we were studying other stock photography businesses was that they were very cheesy and stale. We believe in having authentic experiences during the photo shoot, so we tell people, "Please wear whatever you would wear on a regular day, and just act like we are shooting a regular day in your life." It's really important for us to portray that, and it's been successful; people have bought into that.
![MP: One of TONL's features is the Narratives Section, which highlights the personal stories of your photo subjects. What was the reasoning behind including that?
KO: Joshua and I are huge believers in storytelling and being authentic. We really wanted to find a way to add an educational element [to the imagery].
"We wanted to take the narrative back and allow those people to speak for themselves."
Most [stock] pictures you just take and use for whatever you want, but you don't really know the story behind the person [in them]. And in a society where we may look at people's skin colors and immediately judge them or associate them with a negative stereotype, we wanted to take the narrative back and allow those people to speak for themselves.
We're always being asked, "Where did you find these people?" The reality is all of the people that you're seeing on our site are our friends. We only recently started tapping into people that we don't know — most notably, Nodumo. She reached out to us on Twitter and asked if we [offered] any pictures of people who are albino. When we don't have something yet, we are very open to suggestions, because it's a community. We ended up sharing her narrative. We reached out to her like, "You're going to be our first Albino model!" We believe in the power of the narratives.
MP: What is your approach when it comes to creating collections?
KO: First and foremost, it's really important to us to be of the times. One of the things we noticed when we were studying other stock photography businesses was that they were very cheesy and stale. We believe in having authentic experiences during the photo shoot, so we tell people, "Please wear whatever you would wear on a regular day, and just act like we are shooting a regular day in your life." It's really important for us to portray that, and it's been successful; people have bought into that.](https://media1.popsugar-assets.com/files/thumbor/qQ37giBHd9aeRcFaCtDq1T3xayo/fit-in/1024x1024/filters:format_auto-!!-:strip_icc-!!-/2018/01/19/995/n/42301552/netimguuLBmB/i/MP-One-TONL-features-Narratives-Section-which.jpg "MP: One of TONL's features is the Narratives Section, which highlights the personal stories of your photo subjects. What was the reasoning behind including that?
KO: Joshua and I are huge believers in storytelling and being authentic. We really wanted to find a way to add an educational element [to the imagery].
\"We wanted to take the narrative back and allow those people to speak for themselves.\"
Most [stock] pictures you just take and use for whatever you want, but you don't really know the story behind the person [in them]. And in a society where we may look at people's skin colors and immediately judge them or associate them with a negative stereotype, we wanted to take the narrative back and allow those people to speak for themselves.
We're always being asked, \"Where did you find these people?\" The reality is all of the people that you're seeing on our site are our friends. We only recently started tapping into people that we don't know — most notably, Nodumo. She reached out to us on Twitter and asked if we [offered] any pictures of people who are albino. When we don't have something yet, we are very open to suggestions, because it's a community. We ended up sharing her narrative. We reached out to her like, \"You're going to be our first Albino model!\" We believe in the power of the narratives.
MP: What is your approach when it comes to creating collections?
KO: First and foremost, it's really important to us to be of the times. One of the things we noticed when we were studying other stock photography businesses was that they were very cheesy and stale. We believe in having authentic experiences during the photo shoot, so we tell people, \"Please wear whatever you would wear on a regular day, and just act like we are shooting a regular day in your life.\" It's really important for us to portray that, and it's been successful; people have bought into that.")
