Wiki Loves Monuments comes to Pakistan

Promoting Pakistan's cultural heritage one photograph at a time

KARACHI: The world's largest online photography competition, Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is set to hold its fifth online photography competition in September to promote Pakistan's cultural heritage. 

Organised by the Wikimedia Community User Group Pakistan, the WLM competition will allow participants to upload photographs of cultural monuments from August 31 (today) and will remain open for submissions until September 30; with results to be announced in mid-October for the local award and in December for the international awards.

"The Pakistani jury will select the top ten local finalists who will receive exclusive Wikipedia merchandise," representative of Wikimedia Pakistan and lead co-ordinator for Wiki Loves Monuments Pakistan, Saqib Qayyum told The Express Tribune. 

The local top 10 entries will then be nominated for the international round, in which the first international winner will win a travel scholarship to attend the international Wikimania conference in Italy, scheduled for 2016.

Photographs must be of recognised cultural heritage sites across Pakistan ranging from historical buildings and landmarks, all which are listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_Pakistan .

"Entries will be selected on the basis of technical quality and creativity of the photograph and its potential usefulness to Wikipedia" Qayuum said further.

The Wikimedia Community User Group Pakistan is the official affiliate of Wikimedia Foundation that runs and owns Wikipedia and sponsors Wiki Loves Monuments events.

Read: Wiki Loves Earth: 10 photographs from Pakistan that will leave you breathless

The competition was first held in 2010 in the Netherlands after which it spread to other countries in Europe and according to the Guinness Book of Records, the 2011 edition of the Wiki Loves Monuments broke the world record for the largest photography competition.

The competition extended further the following year beyond Europe, with a total of 35 participating countries and submissions of around 350,000 photographs of historic monuments.

Read: Game changer: Reinventing Lyari, one photograph at a time

By 2013 WLM spread to over 50 countries across six continents including Antarctica.

Pakistan is the third South Asian Country, after India and Nepal, to participate in the competition. Here are some of the entries from last year:

PHOTO: Alimujtaba79

PHOTO: Rohaan Bhatti

PHOTO: Shagufta Karim

Get clicking, and send your submissions here: http://wikilovesmonuments.pk/participate/