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> It’s easy to emphasize glamorous World Cup coverage (which gave us huge stats!). But a lot of the events photographed are things like AAAS and other academic

> It’s easy to emphasize glamorous World Cup coverage (which gave us huge stats!). But a lot of the events photographed are things like AAAS and other academic conference, local book festivals, politicians at an event in Adelaide, Indian artists at a fair in Santa Fe. Volunteers grinding away to fill out wiki coverage in areas they are passionate about. How does work for major events? I noticed a bunch of the before-after photos were taken at TIFF 2025, where actors were presumably on the red carpet promoting their debuting movie. Did the volunteer get a press pass to be able to be there? Or were they in the 'fan line'?

jenny8lee 2mo ago
We apply for press credentials using our portfolios and publication stats like any media outlet. Stats happen to be very strong for Wikipedia (Circulation? 2 billion monthly). After two plus years, we have a good sense of what thresholds we need for which events. Bryan Berlin (World Cup photog) spent a LONG time getting qualified for FIFA through local soccer games and up. We took advantage of Thanksgiving weekend when credential demand was slow and sent him to a single game in Florida on the Friday to qualify him in a way that had been hard for us up until that point. What is still hard for us: Met Gala (a more “known” fashion photographer may help there), Oscars, Golden Globes and F1. F1 much demand from our photogs, but very high and specific bar that is hard for Wiki to thread (photos bought at market rates). Also some places, like World Economic Forum, have an exclusive with Getty so we are functionally locked out. The photos work hard to get credentials. A British photog got himself qualified for BAFTA TV awards! A high school girl in Bay Area got herself credentialed for NHL. Olympics are country by country so smaller countries (like Armenia) are sometimes more strategic to credential through. Working on better pictures of the Pope thanks to a Rome-based fashion photographer who joined us. Remember, a number of the WikiPortraits photogs are professionals. They are just volunteering their time with us. But we also help folks who are like “My mom is willing to help buy my first camera camera, what should I get.” WikiPortraits meets people where they are.

jenny8lee 2mo ago

We apply for press credentials using our portfolios and publication stats like any media outlet. Stats happen to be very strong for Wikipedia (Circulation? 2 billion monthly). After two plus years, we have a good sense of what thresholds we need for which events. Bryan Berlin (World Cup photog) spent a LONG time getting qualified for FIFA through local soccer games and up. We took advantage of Thanksgiving weekend when credential demand was slow and sent him to a single game in Florida on the Friday to qualify him in a way that had been hard for us up until that point. What is still hard for us: Met Gala (a more “known” fashion photographer may help there), Oscars, Golden Globes and F1. F1 much demand from our photogs, but very high and specific bar that is hard for Wiki to thread (photos bought at market rates). Also some places, like World Economic Forum, have an exclusive with Getty so we are functionally locked out. The photos work hard to get credentials. A British photog got himself qualified for BAFTA TV awards! A high school girl in Bay Area got herself credentialed for NHL. Olympics are country by country so smaller countries (like Armenia) are sometimes more strategic to credential through. Working on better pictures of the Pope thanks to a Rome-based fashion photographer who joined us. Remember, a number of the WikiPortraits photogs are professionals. They are just volunteering their time with us. But we also help folks who are like “My mom is willing to help buy my first camera camera, what should I get.” WikiPortraits meets people where they are.