Given that public image immediately translates into market value, i.e. money, for actors and (to a lesser degree) for other media figures such as authors, I wonder why they (or their publicists) often don’t seem to take the opportunity to submit a photograph to Wikipedia
Example for publicly contributed ‘candid’-type photographs where the subject would have fared much better with a normal, professionally made publicity-type photograph: Dan Aykroyd - Wikipedia William Shatner - Wikipedia
So, is there any particular reason for people for whose personal promotion a lot of money is spent otherwise to not submit a good photograph to Wikipedia? Or is just an oversight?
If you are a rising star (eg Hilary Duff) or trying to increase your recognizability (Sirtis), then your photo goes everywhere.
If you are an established name or slowly heading out to pasture (Ackroyd & Shatner), then they probably don’t care.
Submitting your own photo for publicity purposes may be a violation of Wikipedia policy:
There may also be certain copyright restrictions, since it’s the photographer that holds copyright by default not the person whose image is on the photograph.