Photographers and Famous Photos

The image that many people have of Tupac in their minds has an author. Knowing the photographers behind the motifs quickly makes it clear why their pictures are keeping courts busy. This page introduces the most important of them and describes their work in words. It deliberately shows no pictures: the rights lie with the photographers and their estates, and the legal disputes are about exactly that.

Chi Modu: The shirtless image and the dispute with Universal

Chi Modu, born around 1967 in Nigeria and raised in New Jersey, worked for the hip-hop magazine The Source starting in 1991 and was its photo editor in the nineties. His black-and-white shots of a shirtless Tupac are, according to Billboard, “arguably the lasting image” of the rapper in the public consciousness; The Source also mentions the shots with a bandana. In 2016, his photo book Tupac Shakur: Uncategorized was published. Modu died in May 2021 at the age of 54; his family announced the news on May 22 (news item).

A year later, his estate clashed with Universal Music Group. On June 24, 2022, trustee Sophia Modu filed a lawsuit: on the site uDiscoverMusic.com, a post about Tupac’s best songs had allegedly used a photo by Modu and credited it to “Universal Music Archives” without his name. A cease-and-desist letter from February 9, 2022, reportedly had no consequences. According to the public docket of the California court, Universal filed a notice of settlement with the estate on November 18, 2022; the terms are unknown (news item on the lawsuit).

Lixenberg and Clinch: A portrait for Vibe, a cover for Rolling Stone

The Dutch photographer Dana Lixenberg portrayed Tupac in Atlanta in 1993 for Vibe. In her famous picture, the then 22-year-old wears a bandana tied at the front, raindrops glisten on his open denim shirt, accompanied by a diamond crucifix. She wanted, she said, to make a picture “that can live beyond the context of what it was shot for”. Her portraits of Tupac and Biggie appeared in 2018 in the book Tupac Biggie (Roma Publications and Patta). Lixenberg also became known for Imperial Courts, a long-term study of a housing project in Watts, Los Angeles: begun in 1993 and published as a book in 2015, the work earned her the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2017.

Danny Clinch photographed Tupac in 1993 on assignment for Rolling Stone for a short profile piece. He kept the composition simple and left space around the person, because he hoped the image might one day serve as a cover. Following Tupac’s death on September 13, 1996, a portrait from this session did indeed appear on the cover of the magazine (TIME).

Eli Reed, Albert Watson, David LaChapelle: Three shots on set and portraits after prison

Eli Reed, who was the first Black photographer to join the Magnum agency, captured Tupac on the set of Poetic Justice in 1992. According to Complex, he took only three shots with a Hasselblad. When Tupac started to take off his clothes at his request, Reed said “Stop”: he wanted to photograph him as a human being first (Poetic Justice).

Albert Watson, who worked for Vibe and Rolling Stone among others, portrayed Tupac in New York in 1991, according to the Christophe Guye gallery; the edition is limited to ten prints with two artist’s proofs. According to reports, David LaChapelle is behind a series he shot for the magazine Details after Tupac’s release from prison, including pictures in a bathtub and an image in which Tupac is tying his bandana. The sources reviewed here do not state exact dates.

Dispute over copyrights: Lawsuits against Univision and fashion brands

Pictures of Tupac remain a battleground. In May 2025, Modu’s estate and Lixenberg jointly filed a lawsuit against the broadcaster Univision: two shots were allegedly used without permission, a photo of The Notorious B.I.G. by Modu and a Tupac picture by Lixenberg, both used in 2018 as the lead image of a web article about the series Unsolved (Billboard, May 16, 2025). According to the reports, no verdict was available; Univision had not initially commented. As of October 2026, no outcome of the proceedings could be determined in the reviewed sources.

In 2017, photographer Michael Miller had sued the Jenner sisters’ brand over Tupac photos on T-shirts; the dispute ended in April 2018 with a request for dismissal (Merchandise and Fashion). There was another case concerning Modu’s Biggie photo in front of the World Trade Center; there, Biggie’s estate and Modu’s widow reached a settlement in January 2024, according to media reports.

Anyone who wants to use a well-known Tupac photo needs the consent of the photographer or their estate, and this is often separate from that of the Tupac estate. For Tupac’s beginnings in front of the camera, see the biography; how the estate licenses images and names is shown in Merchandise and Fashion.