Do you have photos of spring sitting on your hard drive or camera? We have a modest proposal for you.
Wikimedia Commons is the photo repository of the Wikimedia movement. It holds most of the images you’ll find on Wikipedia. The site is full of volunteer photographers that have donated their work to the pursuit of the sum of all knowledge.
That’s where you can come in. As the weather—in the Northern Hemisphere, at least—gets warmer, animals come out of hibernation, the birds return to the trees, and the flowers start to bloom, those volunteers are hosting a contest that you can enter.
There’s only a few real simple requirements:
- Photographs must be the work of the nominator.
- Photographs must be newly uploaded to Commons during the challenge submission period, i.e. March 2018 UTC (but may have been taken years or decades earlier).
- Please do not nominate lots of similar photos; instead choose just your best and most varied images.
How do you go about uploading images, you ask? We have you covered! Here’s some detailed steps.
- Go to the Upload Wizard. Create an account if need be, taking note that we record very little of your personal information.
- Upload your image. Please remember that it has to have been taken by yourself (“This file is my own work”).
- Release, or donate, the rights. We’d suggest the CC BY-SA license, which allows anyone to use it for pretty much any purpose so long as they both attribute you and re-share it under a similar license.
- Describe it. Use a descriptive title, explain what the photo shows, and try to add a category (eg what flower did you photograph?).
- Upload it!
To enter it in the contest, add the file name to the contest page alongside all the other file names. (That’s the “File:Name name name.jpg” part.) If you need help, don’t be afraid to reach out on the site’s help desk.
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Feel free to use this post for inspiration — all of the photos here were entered into this month’s contest. And again, all were taken by Wikimedia Commons’ cohort of volunteer photographers.
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Ed Erhart, Senior Editorial Associate, Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
Need more? Check out Wikimedia Commons’ other ongoing contests.
