One of the world’s most visited websites has rolled out a photography competition asking UAE denizens to document the country’s historical monuments for the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
The Wiki Loves Monuments campaign, which runs throughout the month of September, has put out a call to trigger happy enthusiasts to capture landmarks and showcase Emirati cultural heritage that can be uploaded to the crowdsourced Wikipedia site.
The first international winner will win travel scholarship to attend the international Wikipedia conference in Sweden in August 2019, according to the guidelines, while the top winner will also bag a prize valued at €1500 (Dh6,389). The winner will also receive a printed copy of their winning photo signed by opera singer Placido Domingo.
From Al Maqta Fort in Abu Dhabi to Dubai’s Al Shindagha Watchtower, UAE participants can use a list of cultural properties of national significance in the country on Wikipedia to find eligible sites to photograph.
The international photo contest for monuments is a global collaboration authored by volunteers, which has become an annual event after it was first held in the Netherlands in 2010. The following year, the event went on to enter the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest photography competition.
Since its inception, the Wiki Loves Monuments photo competition has expanded to 85 countries and collected over two million monuments from 70,000 participants. This is the first year the UAE is participating.
The aim of event is to highlight the cultural heritage sites of participating countries with the goal to put them under a free license, which can then be re-used not only in Wikipedia but everyone.
Once campaign is over, a panel of photographic experts will evaluate the best entries according to criteria of quality, originality and usefulness of the image to Wikipedia. The shortlisted photographs will be used to illustrate the relevant articles on Wikipedia, with a potential audience in the hundreds of millions.
In more than 40 countries, a national contest will also be organised, which will then nominate some of their winning pictures for the international contest.
Nominated pictures will be judged by an international jury panel.
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Guidelines
-Photos must be of an eligible listed site. Photos of non-eligible sites will be disqualified.
-All photographs must be taken by the person submitting them. No copyright photos will be allowed.
-Photos uploaded by anyone else than author (even with permission) are not accepted.
-Photographs with watermarks, copyright symbols, signatures and timestamp are not allowed.
-Photographs must be uploaded by September 30, but they can be taken at any time, even historical ones.
-Images can be any resolution, however the images must be at least 2 Megapixels (1600x1200) to be considered for judging.
-Participation is free of charge and there is no limit to the number of images that can be entered.
