You may remember the Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition from last year, and the 10 best photographs that came out of Pakistan on that occasion. This time, Wikimedia Foundation has organised the global Wiki Loves Earth contest, and the best pictures from Pakistan are now out there to feast your eyes on.
The competition is aimed at documenting all of the world’s natural heritage under the free license of Creative Commons. Looking for high-quality royalty-free photos of scenic landscapes can be hard. As a general rule, photos available online are either copyrighted and watermarked, too low in resolution, or uninspiring at best.
Thankfully, this year, 'Wikipedia Loves Northern Pakistan' was organised as part of the global 'Wiki Loves Earth', to fix this problem.
The global 2015 edition has seen more than 8,500 contestants participating from 26 countries, with over 100,000 photo submissions throughout the month of May. From Pakistan alone, over 1500 contestants chipped in from across the country to submit more than 11,000 photographs; making it the country with the fourth largest number of submissions and second largest in the number of participants.
The best thing, of course, is that all the photos have a free license, meaning the photos can be reused for any purpose (even commercially), as long as the reuser attributes the photographer.
The international winners of Wiki Loves Earth 2015 are yet to be announced, but the top 10 pictures to represent Pakistan as decided by Pakistan’s jury are here:
Hunza Valley. —Photo by Ghazi Ghulamraza
Baltoro Glacier, Baltistan. —Photo by Thsulemani
Dudipatsar Lake. —Photo by Hamza Niazi
Jabba Zomalu Lake, Swat. —Photo by K. Night. Visitant
Nanga Parbat. —Photo by Tahsin Anwar Ali
Nanga Parbat Rupal base camp. —Photo by Muhammad Ashar
Shangrila Resorts, Skardu. —Photo by Zaeem Siddiq
Shogran Valley. —Photo by Danial Yaqub
Rakaposhi Peak. —Photo by Rizwan Karim
Shounter Valley. —Photo by Zahid Genio
