20 - 22 July 2012, Base at Mcdonald Road Library, 2 McDonald Road, EH7 4LU |
Organisation: Daria Cybulska, Brian McNeil and Peter Weis
From 20 - 22 July 2012 an international group of Wikimedians run the first "Edinburgh Photography Workshop". Our idea was to improve photography skills amongst the attendees, share the tricks of the trade and show how to make the most of your photographs throughout Wikimedia's projects, focusing on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.
We covered a variety of topics, depending on their individual skills and interest:
The workshop was designed for participants with different photography skills - attendees were encouraged to present on a topic of their choice to share knowledge.
There was a limit of 20 participants, including as many locals as possible and interested attendees from elsewhere in the UK (up to 10) as well as Germany (up to 3). Anyone with a camera (point-and-shoot camera or a high end DSLR) could participate.
Trainers were supported with costs.
Participants user names:
Possible photography locations included:
Mcdonald Road Library opening hours: 10am-5pm
Time | Mcdonald Road Library | Outdoor activity |
---|---|---|
16:00 - 17:00 | meet&greet | |
17:00 - 18:00 | open space | |
18.00 - 20:00 | tea | |
20.00 - open end |
Mcdonald Road Library opening hours: 9am-5pm
Time | Mcdonald Road Library | Outdoor activity |
---|---|---|
10:00 - 10:30 | meet&greet | |
10:30 - 11:30 | camera introduction: dial m for manual mode - Lead by Peter Weis with help of Robert, Andrew and Magnus. Mention of what we are looking for in a Commons picture. |
|
11:30 - 13:30 | photo tour I, focus on architecture, close to the library - lead by Robert Veal | |
13:30 - 14:30 | lunch break (Vittoria - opposite McDonald Rd Library) | |
14:30 - 15:30 | evaluation of photos taken on the tour (in groups, supervised by Peter, Magnus, Robert and Andrew) | |
15:30 - 16:45 | Wikipedia & Wikimedia commons by User:Brian McNeil and User:Peter Weis | |
17.30 - 19:30 | optional - dinner/pub |
Mcdonald Road Library opening hours: 1pm-5pm
Time | Mcdonald Road Library | Outdoor activity |
---|---|---|
10:00 - 10:15 | meet and greet @RBGE, main entrance on Inverleith Row. Bus 8 stops nearby. | |
10:15 - 12:30 | photo tour II starting @RBGE, ending at McDonald Rd Library | |
12:30 - 14:00 | return for lunch. grab some sandwiches at Tesco opposite McDonald Rd Library | |
14:00 - 15:00 | uploading photographs on Commons - lead by User:Peter Weis, supported by experienced Wikimedians | |
15:00 - 16:30 | Questions, sum up and what’s next by User:Brian McNeil |
For those who saw editing of RAW format photos, and would rather not spend the money on yet another piece of software, there are free alternatives. This video shows a program called RawTherapee. Yes, the demo is on Linux, but there is a version available for Windows.
Wikimedia Commons has an official policy on licensing. Although a large variety of free licences is suitable for your content, we focused on Creative Commons licences throughout the workshop.
As mentioned in chats during Saturday's session, some people do use other tools (WordPress, for example). In this case, WordPress is freely licensed, similarly to text on Wikipedia and images on Commons.
However, as a blogger, you can have all of Commons at your disposal. This WordPress plugin is designed to allow you to do that. This allows far more scope in making your images available to a wider audience; in return, you - relatively conveniently - have the entire Commons media repository at your disposal.
For those, like our friends from OpenStreetMap, absolutely any installation of the same software as used by Wikipedia can use something called InstantCommons. Again, it puts all of Commons at your disposal. This, on an individual level, may not be particularly useful. However, many small-to-medium companies can employ the MediaWiki package instead of the far more costly Sharepoint suite from Microsoft.
The big advantage of tools like this is you, as a content creator, are not left dealing with the technical details of downloading from Commons, perhaps resizing the image, uploading to your content management system, and correctly attributing the image - you just use it.
If you upload pictures to the Commons you usually do that to illustrate a Wikipedia article. However it's nice to know about the metrics of re-use.
Featured pictures are images that the community has chosen to be highlighted as some of the finest on Commons. The idea is to award this honour to extraordinary images, which will then be featured on the main page of Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia (for Wikipedia's featured picture project see Wikipedia:Featured pictures). Every year, featured pictures elected in the last 12 months will be part of the picture of the year contest.
Featured picture candidates is a good way to get feedback on your images and see if the community considers them being the finest available. Please note that critique on featured picture candidates may be rather harsh sometimes. In addition you'll encounter several non-native speakers or people who don't speak English.
You can learn more about featured pictures on Commons:Featured pictures and Commons:Featured picture candidates