World’s biggest photography competition Wiki Loves Monuments returns to Ireland

Image above Durrow Abbey by Dalenevada.

By @SimonCocking

Amateur and professional photographers entered 2,015 images of national monuments in their locality in 2014 competition

The world’s biggest photography competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, is bigger and better for its second year in Ireland, with more locations and subject added.

Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 is taking place from Sunday 23^rd August – Wednesday 30^th September. Initiated by Wikimedia, the movement behind free encyclopaedia Wikipedia, and run in Ireland by the Wikimedia Ireland Community, the competition aims to raise awareness of Ireland’s national monuments and create a crowd-sourced bank of quality photos that will be free to use for education.

Amateur and professional photographers are invited to photograph the national monuments in their locality and upload their photos to www.wikilovesmonuments.ie. The site includes a listing of each county’s eligible national monuments. This year the list has been expanded from 503 locations to 970 and now includes historic houses and graveyards. Entries will be judged by a three-person expert panel and the winners will be announced on Sunday 1^st November. The top ten Irish images will then be entered into the international competition.

Ross Castle by Niall O’Donovan

Last year the Wiki Loves Monuments competition in Ireland attracted 256 photographers who submitted a total of 2,015 images.  The photographers uploaded photographs from a total of 271 different monuments and 323 of these images are currently being used in Wikipedia articles. 2014 winners of the Irish competition can be seen here. 2014 winners of the international competition can be seen here

The project is being supported by The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, National Heritage Week, The Heritage Council of Ireland, The Office of Public Works, Open Knowledge Ireland and Dimension Data. For full details of the competition see www.wikilovesmonuments.ie and for updates see @WikimediaIE #WLMIE and Wikimedia Ireland’s Facebook page.

Wiki Loves Media 2015 will be officially launched at Archaeofest in Merrion Square, Dublin on Saturday 29^th August 2015. Run by the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland, Archaeofest is a free, public engagement archaeology event. Members of the Wikimedia Community Ireland will be there to show off entries from last year’s Wiki Loves Media competition.

Certified by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest photography contest, the annual contest started in the Netherlands in 2010 which resulted in over 12,500 images uploaded. Since then it has grown significantly and in 2014 over 321,000 photographs were submitted by more than 9,000 participants from around the world. All images are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia’s online repository that makes public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) available to everyone.

St Finbarre’s Cathedral by Eadaoin De Roiste

Rebecca O’Neill, Wikimedia Ireland commented, “After the success of last year, we can’t wait to see what fantastic photos are submitted for this year’s Wiki Loves Monuments competition. We inspired 256 photographers to get out and photograph their local heritage sites in 2014. As a result 2,015 original images were produced and 323 of these images are currently being used in Wikipedia articles.”

“Wiki Loves Monuments 2015 has been expanded, so that photographers can choose from a much wider choice of locations, up from 503 to 970. We’ve also included historic houses and graveyards among the heritage sites that can be photographed.”

“Anyone can take part, so we’re calling on amateur and professional photographers across Ireland to visit the national monuments in their locality, take their best shots and upload them. There are no limits to the entries photographers can make – the photographer who won 7th place shot every monument near her, uploading 201 images, whereas the photographer who won 1st place only uploaded 2 images.”

“The aim of National Heritage Week is to build awareness and education about our heritage thereby encouraging its conservation and preservation. The Wiki Loves Monuments competition does exactly that, with the added bonus of creating a freely accessible database of national monument images. We are delighted to be able to raise awareness of the benefits of open knowledge and to increase participation in its creation and preservation.”

The top ten Irish photos were:

1. Rathgall Hill Fort, Co Wicklow – Simon Dowling
2. Rock of Cashel, Co Tipperary – Dee Keane
3. Loughcrew Passage Tomb, Co Tipperary – Stephen Keaveny
4. Durrow Abbey, Co Laois, Dalenevada
5. Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin – Antonio Camelo
6. Ballymoon Castle, Co Carlow – Paul O’Leary
7. St Finbarre’s Cathedral, Cork – Eadaoin De Roiste
8. Sheep Gate, Co Meath – Denis O’Donovan/Pullandbang
9. Ross Castle, Co Kerry – Niall O’Donovan/Digital Eye
10. Dunamase Castle, Co Laois – Rafal Zabron