Sorry, it does not pay, but it is an excellent way for hobby and weekend photographers to display their work, gain some experience, and get some feedback. Another bonus is you can enter Wikimedia's contests or challenges each month. For example, one of the August 2017 contests was panning, which is a technique for taking pictures of a moving object.
The Panning Challenge Winner
What A Flight!
By Sally V - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
Contests
The contest themes at Wikimedia can be very unique such as the October 2017 contest was corroded objects. The topics foster inspiration. They vary from everyday objects to scientific exploration.
The Corroded Object Contest Winner
Rusty Vehicle with Three Champions
Another way to show off on Wikimedia is to have your work be picked for photo of the day. One lucky winner is displayed on the front page, but in order to be selected, your photo must be featured. A featured photo is top quality, and it is selected by voting members. After you sign up, you can cast a vote for your favorite photos.
Winner For June 20th, 2018
A steam locomotive No.2 Dolgoch at Nant Gwernol railway station, Talyllyn Railway, Wales
Picture Of The Year
If you are good enough to be a featured artist, you automatically are in the running for the picture of the year. Winning or even placing in any of these contests should give you plenty of bragging rights, and the award will provide you with lots of reasons to post on social media.
Many of the winning pictures are of everyday scenes and objects just caught at the right time. Photography does not have to be exotic or rare, but those types of pictures are needed too.
Second Place : Picture of the Year 2015
Color effect – Sunlight shining through stained glass onto carpet
Filling Requests
Not only are there fun and games on Wikimedia, but posting images can help a lot of bloggers or writersfind a picture of something.
Some situations where it comes in handy are when you are writing about a travel destination where you do not live but are studying the area or writing on the topic. If you are researching certain plants, animals, or certain types of foods you can request photos.
The photo categories are very extensive. This is an incomplete summary of them.
- Locations
- Activities
- Concepts
- Culture
- History
- Materials
- Nature
- Places
- Science
- Society
There are many, many to choose from. Once you pick a category like animals, a list of subtopics, and then an extensive list of subcategories opens.
For example, under the objects category, the subtopics include dust on objects, parcels, and scale models. Scale models open up another subcategory of items that could be scaled models, things like buildings, trains, cars, and miniatures.
What I’ve learned is somebody, somewhere probably needs a photo of something you have or something you’ve seen.
Another example, in animals the subtopics include extinct animals, parazoa, and animal fossils. I opened parazoa, which I had to look up what a parazoa was. In a nutshell, it is an invertebrate, which survives with sponges.
A Photo From The Parazoa Category
Invertebrate Garden With A Blue Lolypop
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By Derek Keats from Johannesburg, South Africa - Invertebrate garden with a blue lolypop, CC BY 2.0, Link
Create an Account
First you will need and account. Bring up the website Wikimedia Commons and click on create account in the upper right hand corner. On the next screen, you will be asked to pick a username. This name will be publically displayed so select carefully. You can modify it on each individual upload if you would like.
How People Request An Image
- Click on the welcome page (Not the Main Page) located on the left side menu.
- Now you should be on the welcome page. Scroll down until you see a box that says “Participate.”
- Look for the hyperlink that says “badly needed.” Click on it. This will take you to the request page.
Sometimes there will be website link to the Wikipedia page that is looking for the image, but often there is only a general request.
Once you find a request you can fill bookmark the page you are on, or save the location so you can easily get back to it. You have to go to another area to upload the picture, but you will want to return to the request page to notify the requester.
Once you find a request you can fill bookmark the page you are on, or save the location so you can easily get back to it. You have to go to another area to upload the picture, but you will want to return to the request page to notify the requester.
How To Upload A Photograph
Once Your Photo Is Uploaded, Notify The Requestor
Remember that page where the request was made. You need to pull it back up, and find that request again. Click the edit button.
A standard blog editor will open up. When there are several items being request, make sure you are writing under your subcatergory. Cats has several people looking for different items, and you want to make sure and write below the request you are filling. Type below any previous messages.
Here you can leave the URL or page, or you can be more elaborate and leave your hashtag or hyperlinks. It seems like you can say pretty much whatever you want to let them know you uploaded something they may be interested in looking at.
After adding your description, scroll to the bottom to preview what you wrote. Fix it, or publish it.
Rights And Responsibilities
You should know what types of pictures are acceptable and which are not. Obviously, do not upload someone else’s work. It must be your product to use 100%. Do not upload pictures off of the web that you found. Do not use company trademark logos.
Things you can upload are images you took of plants, animals, nature, public figures. A public figure is someone who willfully puts himself or herself out for public display. The public figure must be in a public setting. If you are not sure of a person’s public status, it is probably best not to upload their photo. You can upload your photos that you took of “old” art like the Mona Lisa, the statue of David, and the Sistine Chapel. It might help you to think of "old" art as something that is in the public domain.
There are rules for posting pictures of people. The Wikimedia standard is the person photographed must give consent for publishing if the person is an identifiable individual taken in a private place. There are additional issues if it is a child or underage person. Reference Wikimedia's guide: Photographs of Identifiable People before uploading pictures of human beings.
Your Rights
You must give permission to Wikimedia to allow anyone to download and use your picture. You must give the person who uses it the right to modify it, and sell items with it also.
In exchange for getting to use your photo for free, they must give you credit with proper attribution, which is easily provided for them in a link they can copy and paste or an HTML code.
Good Luck, I hope to see you on Wikimedia!
