As a Photographer, Kimberley Berryman (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Raukawa) knows the difficulty in trying to ensure that appropriate tikanga is applied when providing photographs of indigenous peoples, and indigenous artifacts as well as significant landmarks. Knowing how to gain the appropriate permissions and who the benefits go to are challenging questions to answer, and because of this, not many photographers have attempted to go this path with stock photography.

Meanwhile, Tainui Berryman (Waikato) is a Marketing Coach and he sees the daily struggle of businesses large and small who want to access representative stock photography and video, but there simply being insufficient options available. He’s seen the disappointment of his customers, and the fact that the non-inclusion of indigenous people in the finished products means that indigenous people become invisible.

Tainui and Kimberley created Culture Snap to face these challenges head-on, creating a library of indigenously representative stock imagery and educating creatives to consider tikanga in the way they take and publish these materials. They provide flexible methods for businesses to access this material to enable greater representation of indigenous people, to be seen how they wish to be seen.

Indigenous people have been underrepresented and wrongly represented for generations. We’ve been confronted by the problem for so long and the social climate of the world is becoming more aware of how we have and continue to fail indigenous people, and the need to demonstrate greater representation and inclusion across the board.

Culture Snap have its MVP ready to go, and they have a growing list of early adopters.

When asked what they want to achieve in the next 12 months they say “we want 1,500 customers with access to over 20,000 images. Beyond this, we will be prepared to enter the Australian market, where the same problems with representation of indigenous people exist.”

As they prepare to launch their MVP, Kimberley and Tainui say “We are inviting people to visit Culture Snap to register as early adopters, so that we can provide updates as we progress.”

Tainui Berryman (Waikato) and Kimberley Berryman (Ngā Puhi, Ngāti Raukawa)

The Culture Snap Team say that they have absolutely loved being amongst incredibly successful and knowledgeable people – and being given the chance to throw ideas around with them.

Kimberley and Tainui enjoyed the time pressure to do stuff – a love-hate relationship, but it helped them to realise how much they could achieve when under the pressure of a deadline. Kimberley says “Mixing with our cohort who are in a similar space and on a similar journey to us is one of my favourite things.”

Tainui shares, “Kōkiri has been a great learning experience, working together in this type of space, it has been an incredible learning curve. Kōkiri is helping us learn more about one another and life together, and it has helped us to learn other skills to take outside of work-life as well.”

Kimberly explains, “Before this I was a full-time mum with a toddler, but now I’m pretty much full-time in the business and full-time mum. Kōkiri has provided me with the opportunity to wear a new hat, and our future trajectory for our family has changed as a result.”

Opportunities that have come about as a direct result of our involvement in the programme include the engagement with a wide range of speakers, having heard of what we’re doing and wanting to connect and provide a foot in the door with a lot of organisations, so as a result of Kōkiri doors have been opened.

For anyone thinking of applying to Kōkiri in the future, Tainui and Kimberley recommend it.  They recommend “for others to have the idea before they come into the programme. The value you can get out of the programme is massive and the support that you have access to is incredible.”