Help Illustrate the Internet With Wikipedia’s Photo Contest

Turn to almost any blog or news site online, and you’ll find one of three things: a flagrant disregard for copyright law, a beefy budget for stock photography or the touch of the Wikimedia Foundation. The foundation, which also runs Wikipedia, hosts Wikimedia Commons‘ searchable repository of free-to-use photos and illustrations. Images come from two main sources—creators who give permission for others to use their work or the public domain.

Now, Wikimedia is holding a photography contest. Its aim is to expand the number of photos in its archives and hence the number of photos that are available for anyone in the world with an internet connection to use. Through September, the foundation is asking users to upload photographs of historic sites and important monuments. According to Venture Beat,

Ten finalists and one grand prize winner will be announced in December, and the winner will receive a trip to Hong Kong to shoot a photo tour in conjunction with Wikimania 2013.

For photographers in the United States, they’ve put together a state-by-state and county-by-county breakdown of the monuments of interest. So, if you’ve got some spare time to kick around this weekend, why not snap some shots of local historic sites, expanding the freely-available digitized version of the world?

More from Smithsonian.com:

The World Monuments Fund 2012 Watch List
Timbuktu’s Ancient Relics Lay In Ruins At Hands of Militant Group

Colin Schultz | | READ MORE

Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy, and a M.A. in journalism.