Its time to ‘Wiki Loves Africa’ Again
For the first time, last year, a continental-wide photo contest kicked off. With over 6,000 pictures uploaded, the annual public photo contest was sure to a great start. Similar to Wiki Loves Monuments – which is primarily about sharing pictures of monuments around the world – Wiki Loves Africa is primarily for Africans on African soil, but open to all, with last year’s event theme around Cuisines.
“Wiki Loves Africa is an annual public contest where people across Africa can contribute media (photographs, video, and audio) about their environment to Wikimedia Commons for use on Wikipedia and other project websites of the Wikimedia Foundation.” Everyone is welcome to share any Africanized multimedia content related to the theme: Fashion and Adornment.
Now, that the theme is a lot wider than one might think of, and the Wiki Loves Africa organizers are hoping to receive multimedia content spanning across all possible aspects under the theme. This year’s contest promises to be bigger, better and more successful than last year’s, all because of more hard work put in by the organizers to ensure a great event.
The competition encourages media that represents cultural dress, fashion and a diversity of adornment. Cultural fashion has been defined as clothing and body wear that presents local cultural influences and is determined by cloth, styles, ways of wrapping and hanging, etc. This theme also includes adornment, which is represented by culturally defined jewelry, make-up, hairstyles, tattoos and scarification, cloths and woven materials.
The competition runs from the 1st October to the 30th November 2015 and entries are welcome from anywhere on the continent and beyond.
How We Did Last Year
The event came to an end, and the best image needed to be chosen. However, that was not going to be an easy task, because, about 6,000 pictures from 873 unique contributors in 49 countries were added to Wikimedia Commons during the photo contest.
[two_third]Countries with the largest number of contributions were Ivory Coast, Ghana, Tunisia, Uganda, Egypt, Morocco and South Africa (which by and large maps the countries where local teams were involved).[/two_third][one_third_last][button color=”green” size=”big” link=”https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:UploadWizard?campaign=wlafrica” icon=”” target=”true”]Join Contest[/button][/one_third_last]
2014 WLAf Winning Image
Of course, 6,000 images aren’t that many compared to the size of Africa, but hey, how many foods can you eat? As the first ever contest, with that amount of images uploaded from these different countries, the contest is a great success and was well executed. What’s more, even unexpected enthusiasm and high participation came from countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, and Tanzania that did not have local teams.
I wrote a short blog post earlier this year about the previous Wiki Loves Africa 2014 event, all the winners, and some more stats.
How We want to Do
Less than 500 photographs have been uploaded into the Wiki Loves Africa contest category on Wikimedia Commons at the moment, just some 2 days into the 2-month-long event. However, we should expect more pictures flying through cables and other mediums to join the already uploaded photographs.
This year’s event promises to be even bigger, considering a target of 8,000 or more images planned to drop on the table. Plus, at least 400 participants, according to the Grants: PEG on Wikimedia Meta
What’s in for You?
WLAf 2015 plans to honor the best photograph(er)s with the amazing prices below.
- 1st prize: a Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 + an Africa-published book + Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the participant winning picture
- 2nd prize: US$300 Amazon gift + an Africa-published book + Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the 2nd prize picture
- 3rd prize: US$200 Amazon gift + an Africa-published book + Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the 3rd prize picture
- Community Prize: US$200 Amazon gift voucher + an Africa-published book + Mystery gifts from the Wikimedia Store + print of the Community Prize
What are you waiting for then? Grab your Camera (I’m using my Xperia Z2 and tiny gears – Camkix all-in-one) and approach any target (scene) which matches this year’s theme, capture them in full glory, upload to Wikimedia Commons, and stand the chance of winning.
For more updates relating to the event in your country, first check if a local team has organized the event in your country, and join their mailing list. If you’re in Ghana, you may subscribe to the Wikimedia-gh mailing list.
May the best photograph(er) win!
Source: Wiki Loves Africa
