Wiki Loves Earth 2015 expedition to Batna Province

Reda Kerbouche| by Reda Kerbouche

It’s always a pleasure to know that your initiative is a triger to another one. Today we want to tell you a story from Algeria about expedition to Belezma National Park.

Algeria participated in WLE for the second time. As a part of preparation for WLE 2015 Reda Kerbouche co-organiser of Wiki Loves Earth Algeria decided to organise expedition.

Continue reading “Wiki Loves Earth 2015 expedition to Batna Province”

How to shoot great photos for WLE?

Wiki Loves Earth is a photo competition. So it’s not a surprise that international jury will be judging participant’s photos. Some of our contestants are worried about the quality of images and their skills as  photographers.

Our first tip is – have fun and enjoy the nature and its landscapes.

Second of all – remember there is no wrong or right photo. It’s all about your vision. Don’t stress attentions on the fact whether your camera is professional enough or it’s not. Just feel it.

And for those of you who want to raise their professional photographer level, we’ve collect some video manuals “How to…”. Continue reading “How to shoot great photos for WLE?”

Wiki Loves Earth community

Wiki Loves Earth 2015 is growing and spreading all over the world. We are really happy with such a big interest to the competition. WLE becoming a movement and treated not only as competition, but also as a prestigious way to tell about a country and beauty of its natural objects and zones. National committees of Wiki Loves Earth 2015 launch new channels for users to stay in touch with all updates. We advise you to follow all these pages/groups not to miss most interesting, trilling and significant photos of 2015. Enjoy! Continue reading “Wiki Loves Earth community”

Wiki Loves Earth 2015 is coming soon!

On 1st May 2015 the Wikimedia community with the help of its Ukrainian and Polish Chapters and volunteers is starting an international photo contest with a natural heritage theme, Wiki Loves Earth 2015. This is the third year of the competition. In 2013, Ukraine was the only participant, last year there were 16 countries in the contest and now it encompasses Algeria, Andorra and Catalan areas, Austria, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Estonia, France, Germany, Macedonia, Nepal, Pakistan, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Uruguay, Ukraine and many more are willing to join in to share their natural monuments with the world!

First prize: Carpathian National Park, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine | by Dmytro Balkhovitin
WLE 2014 First prize: Carpathian National Park, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine | by Dmytro Balkhovitin, CC BY-SA 3.0

Wiki Loves Earth is organized through numerous national contests, coordinated by local volunteers. The national juries then submit up to 10 pictures to the international stage of the contest. Last year with 16 participating countries, the international jury had to consider a total of 156 candidate pictures!

Wiki Loves Earth Brasil 2014 - Exhibition - Photo Cloud | by Rodrigo Padula
Wiki Loves Earth Brasil 2014 – Exhibition – Photo Cloud | by Rodrigo Padula, CC BY-SA 4.0

This photo contest is not only a great opportunity to show the charms of nature, but also a chance to draw public attention to environmental problems and Wikipedian activities. The focus is not only on sites of national importance, but also on the areas protected on the regional level and on the widest variety of natural sites possible: forests, parks, gardens, rocks, caves and whatever is protected within the participating countries. This means that most users will be able to find several natural heritage sites close to them.

The full report of the last year’s international jury, explaining its work, selection process and bringing the results together with comments of the jury, is available here.

We truly hope that you will participate in our joint efforts to make this year’s contest even brighter!

All photographs in this post are published by their authors. Click the photos for details.