Tecno is taking its camera strategy beyond image quality and into representation with a new project called “100 Portraits of Becoming.” The initiative, created with Brazilian visual artist Angélica Dass, is designed to photograph 100 people across five countries over two years.
The project places a strong focus on how cameras see people, not just how they render them. Tecno is using it to extend its effort to make digital imaging more accurate across different skin tones, while also turning the camera into a tool for recognition and identity.
Portraits built around authenticity
The first session began on 6 July in Nairobi, Kenya, where local entrepreneurs, creators, and innovators were photographed. Every image in the program is being captured with the Tecno Camon 50 Ultra, which uses the company’s Universal Tone imaging technology.
Participants are asked to wear their own clothes and are photographed in natural light without filters. That approach is meant to preserve authenticity, while Dass also records each participant’s personal story and the social and cultural changes that shaped them.
What Tecno says the project is meant to do
According to Angélica Dass, the collaboration is not about documenting appearance alone. She has described portrait work as a way to let people exist beyond the assumptions often attached to them.
Dass also argues that the project is not meant to define anyone. In her view, identity should remain layered and open, because being seen is not the same as being understood.
Universal Tone remains the technical backbone
Tecno has been building this direction for some time. In 2023, the company introduced Universal Tone as an imaging system intended to capture skin tones more accurately.
The effort continued in 2024 with the #ToneProud campaign, which was created to challenge skin-tone bias in smartphone cameras. Tecno later expanded Universal Tone’s multi-skin-tone color card to 372 skin-tone patches, showing that the work goes beyond messaging and into data and imaging development.
General Manager Jack Guo said the project aims to go beyond representation as a matter of technical accuracy. He said it should also be understood as recognition, where technology helps people feel truly seen.
Guo added that moving beyond bias, labels, and stereotypes can help shape a future in which technology reflects people more authentically. For Tecno, honest representation is presented as a foundation for better human understanding.
Five countries, 100 stories
The initiative’s target is to reach 100 individuals in five countries. After Nairobi, Dass is scheduled to be in Manila, Philippines, from 16 to 22 August.
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Brazil are the next countries on the list, although the dates for those stops have not yet been announced. The completed portraits will be published on the project website, allowing the public to view both the images and the personal stories behind them.
The program also includes an open registration link for potential participants. That makes the project broader than a showcase for public figures, giving more people a chance to be part of a portrait series built around the idea of becoming.
In that sense, Tecno is positioning the smartphone camera as more than a daily recording tool. The company is using it as a medium for more honest, more inclusive, and more human visual representation.