SOMA - Surfing Through The Odds

With over 90 million images in its editorial library, it seems unlikely that Shutterstock won’t have a requested stock image. However, they were shocked to discover that no images appeared when “black girls surfing” was searched. 

Shutterstock Studios immediately took action and partnered with SOMA, a non-profit organization in Africa that fights gender inequality through surf therapy, to improve representation in surfing content by creating authentic footage and photography featuring Black women surfing. The team traveled to São Tom to capture these images, and created an inspirational documentary titled Surfing Through the Odds that tells this story through the real life experiences of girls whose lives were changed by graduating from SOMA.

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Additional Campaign Credits

Selena LoRusso Senior Director, Enterprise Marketing 

Alexandra Rivera Director, Enterprise Marketing 

Meeckel Beecher Global Head of DEI 

Srey Dasgupta Communications Manager 

Lori Rodney Global Head of External Communications 

Ilias Kountoupis Content Solutions Lead, EMEA 

Kristie McCrory Mgr, Contributor Strategy 

Yun Sun Park Sr Content Editor 

Taylor Bickett Social Media Specialist 

Nicole Dai Associate Creative Director 

Francisca Ovalle Copywriter