Category: Announces

“Wiki Loves Earth 2015 ” closed on 31 May at 0:00:00 Kyiv time with 97 342 photos uploaded from 1-31 May. This year competition broke down the record of the WLE 2014.

The contest is closed in 19 of 26 participating countries.
Some countries decidede to prolonged the contest: Algeria, Austria, Nepal, Thailand – till 30 June, Tunisia – till 15 June.
In the last couple of days of the contest the leaders in the country race have changed. Continue reading “WLE 2015: who is on the run?”

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!

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!

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.

Wiki Loves Earth, a photo contest of natural monuments, became international for the first time in 2014 and was held in 16 countries. The contest is over now, and after the careful evaluation the international jury is happy to announce the winners

Wiki Loves Earth is a photo contest of natural monuments, where participants picture protected areas and upload their photos to Wikimedia Commons. The goal of the project is, on one hand, to capture under a free license as many natural monuments and protected areas as possible, and on the other hand, to contribute to environment protection by raising public awareness.
After years of successful Wiki Loves Monuments organisation there was an idea of a similar contest for natural monuments. The idea of Wiki Loves Earth was born in 2012, and it was implemented for the first time in Ukraine, where the contest was held from 15 April to 15 May 2013.
In 2014, Wiki Loves Earth was joined by 15 other countries from four different continents – Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Most of countries organised the contest from 1 May to 31 May 2014, while some countries extended the contest period till 30 June, and Serbia was the last to finish on 15 July. During the contest, over 70,000 pictures were submitted by more than 3,000 participants.
Similarly to Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves Earth was organised through numerous national contests, coordinated by local volunteers. The national juries then submitted up to 10 pictures to the international stage of the contest. With 16 participating countries, the international jury had to consider a total of 156 candidate pictures.
The international jury was composed of seven photographers, most of whom were experienced in nature photography: Diego Delso (Spain/Germany), Muhammad Mahdi (Tanzania/India), Julián Monge-Nájera (Costa Rica), Susanne Plank (Austria), Esther Solé (Spain), Oleg Zharii (Ukraine) and Wikimedian Wikimk (Macedonia). Their profiles can be found in the jury report. After several weeks of evaluation they have selected the following images:
The first prize goes to the view of Carpathian National Park from Hoverla, Ukraine by Dmytro Balkhovitin. This photo gives an exciting view from the highest point of Ukraine — Hoverla — towards Carpathian National Park, one of the largest in Ukraine. The jury was particularly impressed by the composition of the photo and its lighting with great crepuscular rays.

The second prize was attributed to the photo of God‘s Finger Rock in the Serra dos Órgãos National Park, Brazil. This image by Carlos Perez Couto depicts the best known rock formation in the park, which is also symbol of Brazilian mountaineering and of the entire state of Rio de Janeiro. Breathtaking landscapes are completed with excellent composition that even reminded to one juror of Chinese paintings.

An image of Estonia’s Mukri Nature Park by Janno Loide (Amadvr) was awarded the third place. This original almost monochromatic image represents an autumn fog over the marshes of Estonia. In addition, the jury appreciated the good representation of the red colour of the sky together with high level of detail.

The remaining photos receiving the awards are the following:

Winners were determined by the 7-person jury. Each participating country could nominate one member to the international jury, although only 5 countries used this right. Two further jury members were added by the international organising team to increase diversity of the jury.
156 nominations were submitted to the international organising team by the national juries of the 16 participating countries. Each country was allowed to submit up to 10 images, but some countries decided to submit less images. Andorra and Spain submitted their images in a double nomination. The jury selected and ranked the photos in several stages by means of a dedicated web tool.
The full report of the international jury, explaining the work of the jury, selection process and presenting the results together with comments of the jury, is available here.
Congratulations to the winners and thank you for everyone who worked on organisation of the contest this year!

Mykola Kozlenko,
Wikimedia Ukraine / WLE International team.

All photographs in this post are published by their authors under CC BY-SA 3.0. Click the photos for details.

All 16 participating countries have already announced their national winners (you can look at the gallery of nominated photos), so now it’s time to introduce people who will select the winning photos — the international jury!

The international jury is composed of seven people representing different parts of the world and having different backgrounds. What they have in common is their passion for photography and enthusiasm to select the best photos of natural monuments. Meet our jurors:

Diego Delso is a Spanish electrical engineer, amateur photographer for 20 years and a Wikimedian since 2007. He has uploaded over 11,500 pictures to Wikimedia Commons. Almost half of those pictures have been recognized as Quality Images and around 150 pictures as Featured Pictures. He was a jury member of Wiki Loves Monuments in Spain (2012) and Thailand (2014) and part of the international jury in 2013.

Muhammad Mahdi is a photographer and an avid contributor to Wikimedia Commons. He was born in Tanzania near the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and is currently living in Bangalore, India. He has more than a hundred of featured pictures on both English Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, especially nature shorts. He was a jury member of Wiki Loves Monuments in 2012.

Julián Monge-Nájera is a Costa Rican ecologist, scientific editor, educator and photographer. For many years he has acted as scientific adviser for the BBC and the National Geographic Society. He is regional Editor of the United Nations’ Global Environmental Outlook (“GEO Report”) and author or co-author of 20 books published by several Costa Rican universities, Oxford University, the National Biodiversity Institute (INBio) and Tropical Nature Press.

Susanne Plank lives in Vienna and loves nature, photography and good looking photos of nature. She is 49 and she is active in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects since 2011, both in writing articles and uploading photos. She is an active of Austrian photography community and was a member of pre-jury at various photo contests.

Esther Solé is an art historian and photographer from Lleida (Catalonia, Spain) and active contributor to Catalan Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. She previously served as a Wikipedian in Residence in Lleida’s Museu d’Art Jaume Morera and Barcelona’s Fundació Miró.

Oleg Zharii is a professional photographer from Ukraine. Apart of being professor of Mechanics in Kyiv National University, he is an experienced photographer and winner of numerous photo contests. He has authored a book on HDR and panoramic photography, several photo albums and had photo exhibitions in Kyiv, London (UK) and Nairobi (Kenya). He was a jury member of Wiki Loves Earth 2013 and Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Ukraine.

[[User:Wikimk]] is coming from Macedonia and is interested in photography since the age of 15. He is an active contributor to Macedonian Wikipedia since 2008 and its administrator from 2009. He is one of the founders of Wikimedia Macedonia and was a jury member of Wiki Loves Monuments in Macedonia.

Wiki Loves Earth Ukraine Awards Ceremony took place in Golden Gate (Kyiv) on July 12, 2014.

416 members took part in Ukrainian part of the contest in 2014 and they uploaded more than 12 thousand photographs of 1324 natural monuments.

The best photograph was a snapshot from Crimea.

At the ceremony the winners were awarded in the nominations for the greatest number of natural monuments photographed in each of the regions of Ukraine and the best photos from all regions, as well as participants who photographed the highest number of objects in general in the country, and authors of the ten best photos.

Finally, we announce TOP-10 the best photos. These ten photographs will represent Ukraine at the international stage of the competition.

 

We have the contest opened at 13 countries. There are:

Andorra & Spain

Armenia

Austria

Azerbaijan

Brazil

Estonia

Germany

Ghana

Greece

Macedonia

Nepal

Netherlands

and Ukraine.

You may keep an eye on the growth of «Wiki Loves Earth 2014» here.

We want to congratulate Nepal with start of «Wiki Loves Earth» international photo contest! Nepal is the first country that opened his virtual doors for beautiful photos of natural heritage. And here is the first one! Nepal team is a dream team! Congrats, dear colleagues!