There’s a specific kind of frustration that comes from searching a stock photo library for images of disabled people and finding three kinds of results.
The first: a wheelchair user staring wistfully into the distance, lit like a pharmaceutical ad. The second: a disabled person being helped by an able-bodied caretaker, their face a practiced expression of gratitude. The third: a stock model who is clearly not disabled, costuming the part.
None of these are photographs of people. They’re projections of what the stock photography industry imagines disability looks like when it needs to sell something adjacent to it.
The Infrastructure Problem
This isn’t just an aesthetics failure. It’s an infrastructure failure.
Every time a designer reaches for stock photography and finds only these options, they’re forced into a choice: use the cliché and perpetuate the narrative, or spend hours hunting for something better and probably not finding it. Most teams choose the cliché — not because they want to, but because deadlines are real and alternatives don’t exist at scale.
Alt-Frame exists to be that alternative at scale.
What We’re Actually Building
Alt-Frame is not a charity project. It’s not a diversity initiative. It’s a media library — the same category of tool as Getty or Shutterstock — except that every image is:
- Shot with the subject’s full creative authority. They chose the lighting, the setting, the costume, the narrative.
- Described in alt text written by the person in the photo. Not a copywriter. Not an AI. The person themselves.
- Licensed free forever under CC-BY 4.0. No subscription, no royalties, no hidden friction.
We’re launching during Disability Pride Month 2026 because the timing is right and because we’ve been building long enough in private. The library is small right now — that’s the honest truth. We have a handful of founding assets and a platform built for growth.
Why Open Source, Why Now
We could have waited until the library had 500 assets. We could have done a quiet beta. We could have stayed behind a waitlist.
We didn’t, because the thing that actually makes this library grow isn’t time — it’s community. Photographers who want to contribute. Disabled creatives who want to direct their own shoots. Organizations who want to publish alongside us. None of that happens in private.
So we’re launching open. We’re putting the call out. We’re asking photographers, models, and writers to help us build the library that disability has always deserved.
How to Join
If you’re a photographer, head to our Call for Photographers page. We’re looking for collaborators who shoot with subjects, not at them.
If you’re a disabled model or creative, head to our Call for Models & Creatives page. You direct. You write your alt text. You own your narrative.
If you’re a writer or advocate, we want guest posts on this blog. One post a week from someone in the community is the goal. Get in touch.
We’re building this in the open. Come build with us.