The WordPress community in Kerala, South India, is hosting an online event, the WordPress Photo Festival, scheduled to take place from February 3 to 10, 2024. Following the success of last year’s WordCamp Kerala, the WordPress communities of Trivandrum, Kochi, Kozhikode, Malappuram, and Palakkad have joined forces once again.
The event aims to encourage widespread participation in contributing to the WordPress Photo Directory. Matt Mullenweg announced this open-source directory as a separate project from Openverse in his 2021 State of the Word address. The Photo Directory currently houses over thirteen thousand “free, high-quality, CC0-licensed, community-submitted” photos that can be used anywhere.
The primary objective of the event is to encourage widespread participation in contributing to the WordPress Photo Directory. Currently housing over thirteen thousand “free, high-quality, CC0-licensed, community-submitted” photos suitable for unrestricted use, the directory serves as a valuable resource.
WP Photos team member and one of the organizers of the WP Photo Festival Bigul Malayi said “The WordPress Photo Directory provides an easy and unique way for newcomers to contribute to WordPress. Last year, we organized a photo walk meetup and an online photo contribution event, which was an awesome experience. We contributed more than 200 photos to WordPress Photos and attracted a few new contributors. Encouraged by this success, we have decided to take it further and introduce the exciting WordPress Photo Festival.”
The Photo Festival is open to everyone with a WordPress.org account. Prospective participants need to register for free tickets and share their photographs in the Photo Directory using the hashtag #WPKeralaPhotos during the event. Sadie-Michaela Harris has written a guide on how to upload photos.
All submissions must be licensed as CreativeCommons and will be reviewed by Photo Directory moderators for compliance with the guidelines. The guidelines include:
- The submission should be a high-quality photograph.
- The image file should be JPEG and between 1-20 MB in size (Minimum: 2000 x 2000 pixels and Maximum: 7500 x 7500 pixels).
- No overlays, collages, or extreme content
- No predominant text or art, or faces
- No privacy violation or branding
- Minimal Processing
The best five submissions and top three contributors will receive a prize money of USD$100 each. Interested individuals can connect with the organizers for more details.