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Wikipedia contributors take many paths to become editors and their motivations are as varied as their stories. For Messias Soares Cavalcante, it started in a mechanical workshop in São Paulo, Brazil, and it culminated with the largest collection of cachaça bottles in the world.

Messias Soares Cavalcante

When Cavalcante was 16, he had an epiphany. He worked as an operator of lathe and planer and he wasn’t happy with his job. He was sitting in the workshop, looking at an older mechanic friend and mentor, when he had a premonition. “In 30 years I will be him,” Cavalcante said to himself. “I’ll be here in this or other workshop and I’ll be him.”

Seeing education as his best opportunity out of the life he led, he started taking night classes and he worked as an office boy in a bank, and later as lab tech to pay his way through school. After graduation he became a senior researcher in the field of biological deterioration of wood. Half a century later, Cavalcante has three degrees, including a PhD from the University of Portsmouth in England, and he is the author of several books, including two on cachaça, the sugar cane spirit popular in Brazil and other parts of Latin America.

Cavalcante began collecting cachaça bottles 25 years ago at local markets simply for amusement. Over time, his hobby evolved as he attended fairs and meetings to learn more about the spirit. Early on he found that the discovery of cachaça was heavily disputed and largely unknown, due to lack of physical documents and historical records. The incertitude over its discovery led Cavalcante to seek out books and articles, where he found many inconsistencies and obvious mistakes.

“No one knows when or where it was discovered,” said Cavalcante. “Brazilians say that it was discovered here in Brazil but there are people from other countries, mainly from South America, that claim it was discovered in their respective countries.”

Cavalcante sought to rectify these inconsistencies by sharing his research. He set up a website to collect his findings and, at his son’s suggestion, he formed an FAQ section to answer the many questions readers asked of him. His research was so extensive and so in depth, he realized that he had enough information to publish a history on the topic. His first book, Cachaça: A Verdadeira História da Cachaça (The True History of Cachaça), attempted to dispel the many inconsistencies around cachaça’s origins. In his second book, Todos os Nomes da Cachaça (All the Names of Cachaça), Cavalcante covered the wide range of synonyms for the drink, including over 2,000 names that Brazilians use. Some names are lyrical, such as “refreshment of philosophy (refrigério da filosofia),” and “nectar of the gods (néctar dos deuses).” Others describe the physical effects of cachaça on its imbiber, such as “amnesia (amnésia)” and “burning throat (queima goela).” And still others — which we won’t print here — verge toward the indelicate.

Cavalcante holds the Guinness World Record for the biggest collection of cachaça bottles, with a current total of 15,446 bottles, and he hopes to be the leading expert on the subject. With over 25 years of collecting bottles of cachaça, one would imagine he has indulged in his fair share of the spirit. “Only on Saturdays,” he said when asked.

After using Wikipedia for many years as a reference tool, Cavalcante began editing the cachaça article in early December, 2011, adding detail to what was then a much shorter article. “When I looked at the article about cachaça in Wikipedia, it was okay but it was very small article, little information,” he said. “So as I knew something about that, I intended to collaborate to improve the article and so that’s why I started to be a collaborator of Wikipedia.”

Cavalcante acknowledges a debt to “the knowledge of many people” that he has gleaned from Wikipedia and he’s happy to give back so others can benefit from his learning. “I know how difficult it is to get the right information, accurate information, and Wikipedia gives that to you,” he said. “Wikipedia is a way to get information quickly. You go to Wikipedia and say exactly what you need and so you go for what is very, very important.”

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Winner of the 2011 Picture of the Year: A view of Lake Bondhus in Norway, and in the background of the Bondhus Glacier, part of the Folgefonna Glacier.

Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of media freely licensed and available for anyone to use and repurpose. Every year the Commons community highlights the best media submitted over the course of the previous 12 months, in what has become the Picture of the Year Contest. This year, German Wikipedian Heinrich Pniok is the winner of the Sixth Annual contest for his picture of Lake Bondhus in Norway. You can read the complete story behind the 2011 Picture of the Year in this excellent article by User:Tony1 from the 25 June 2012 issue of the Wikipedia Signpost.

The Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year voting process consists of two Rounds: Round 1 includes pictures promoted to Featured Picture status during the contest period and leads to the final pool of 32 images to be voted for in the next round. Round 2 voting determines the winner from the pool of 32 finalist pictures. Wikimedia Commons currently contains over 13 million freely licensed files and these 3 finalists for Picture of the Year provide us a glimpse of some of the best work available on the database. Anyone can contribute to Wikimedia Commons and you are encouraged to upload your own work to our ever-growing database. Who knows? Maybe your picture will be featured in a blog post like this one next year!

Jordan Hu, Communications Intern

Second choice: Tracy Caldwell Dyson on the International Space Station

Third choice, water reflections in The Verdes' Cave, Canary Islands

Narrowleaf Cottonwood trees near Crestone, Colorado, USA

“This picture I took is nothing special, it’s just the result of someone who took a moment to notice the beauty all around them,” said William Harader.

Many of the Wikimedia Commons contributors who promoted the image as a Featured Picture, and subsequently the Picture of the Day for 23 June, might respectfully disagree with him, as they’ve deemed the image one of the finest in the freely-licensed database.

While doing conservation work for the Biosphere Coalition, Harader was driving around documenting the loss of wetlands around Baca Grande in Crestone, Colorado, USA, when he noticed the sunlight on the Narrowleaf Cottonwoods (Populus angustifolia). He said that it was “an easy shot to take,” it was one of those situations where he was presented with an exceptional opportunity for good photography and was there at the “right place and at the right time.”

“Every plant and every animal is a work of art in itself, and yet so many people don’t even notice this in their daily lives,” said Harader.

Harader works as a graphic designer and although he considers photography a hobby, he does get paid for some of his work. Initially, he started out taking pictures with a film camera but was unsuccessful in mastering the technique. It wasn’t until he borrowed his parents’ digital camera that he devoted more attention to photography, starting out by capturing macro images and slowly expanding to other types. He especially enjoys capturing “people simply living their lives and acting as they naturally would.”

“It’s actually a rather difficult subject to capture, as most people behave differently when they know they’re being photographed. They become very self-conscious and want to pose for the image, instead of just being themselves,” said Harader.

American hover fly (eupeodes americanus)

Harader began contributing to Wikimedia Commons shortly after he became an editor on English Wikipedia in 2006. He supports the principles of free licensing and believes “that society has more to gain from sharing than from competition.” Interestingly enough, Harader said he has received more offers from people wanting to buy prints of his images because they’ve seen his work on Commons than he has through his personal website.

Among many beautiful photos he has contributed to Commons, several of Harader’s pictures were nominated as Pictures of the Year, including the American Hover fly at left.

(To see more of Harader’s work, visit his user page)

Jordan Hu, Communications Intern

Wikimedia Commons is an important resource for photos and media used on Wikipedia and various sister projects. But it is also an amazing store of images that can be freely used in so many other applications, personal or professional, provided you adhere to the prescriptions in the free licenses used on the media.

We thought it would be a useful exercise to pick a theme and see how many interesting images we could find that fit the theme. We chose to center this photo essay on “greetings.” We were delighted to find with the initial search queries of “welcome” and “greeting,” that the subject yielded such a diverse range of images. We sought to expand the search by thinking more broadly about the myriad types of greetings around the world. After reading the article on Wikipedia, a greeting is an act of communication in which human beings (as well as members of the animal kingdom) intentionally make their presence known to each other.

After searching for “greeting” we tried “waving,” “hug,” “kiss,” “haka,” peace sign” and several other search terms. Photos on Commons are sorted into many different categories. So if you already found an image related to the theme you are interested in, it can be useful to click on the categories which appear at the bottom of the image page, below the metadata, to find other images on the same topic. As an example for our search, here is the category for hand waving. If you know a useful category that is missing in the image, you can help Commons by adding it yourself – click “edit” and follow these instructions.

The following gallery shows some of our favorite results, which we’ve selected for the array of greetings they illustrate.

Jordon Hu, Communications Intern
With assistance from Matthew Roth, Global Communications Manager, and Commons contributor InverseHypercube

A Nepalese man demonstrating the "hand wave"

Wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling; Cortège at Slottsbacken

Churchill waves to crowds in Whitehall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945

Tennis player Simone Bolelli waves to the audience at the 2012 French Open

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Morgan Pressel sizing it up

While golf might seem leisurely for the pros who have caddies to carry their clubs, try carrying a 400mm 2.8 lens with a 1.4x extender weighing over 15 lbs (7 kilos) in 90 degree (32 Celsius) temperatures for 7 miles (11 km). That’s what Keith Allison, a part-time professional photographer, did during a stop on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour in 2009.

In this photo, today’s Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Day, Allison had been following LPGA Golfer Morgan Pressel for several holes during her practice round, hoping for an opportunity to get a unique shot. Allison was impressed with how Pressel devoted a considerable amount of time to reading the greens before attempting putts from different locations, even though it was a practice round.

“Golf can be interesting to photograph and that golfers have a unique challenge each week because each course and each hole is different,” said Allison. “One of the most important skills a golfer needs is the ability to read a green and determine where to aim the putt and how hard to hit it.”

In college, Allison was on the photo staff for a semester, and although he enjoyed the experience, he found that film was not for him. It was 1985 and the choice method to develop photos was with Kodak film and a darkroom, which Allison described as an “expensive and frustrating process.” He abandoned film for digital once those cameras became reasonably priced and the quality was high enough for him to purchase one. Soon after, Allison noticed an advertisement for a sports photography workshop. On a whim he decided to enroll and upon completing the course he was credentialed for several professional basketball and hockey games. From there Allison has gone on to do other professional sports covering football, baseball and golf.

“After being on the court of an NBA game literally feet away from the players trying to capture them making a dunk, I became addicted to the challenge of capturing compelling moments like I see in Sports Illustrated each week,” said Allison.

Allison boasts a collection of over 29,000 images uploaded to his Flickr account  and does weekly searches to see where his photos get used online. Wikimedia Commons has frequently made the list of results as many media organizations have accessed his photos via Commons. Having seen his pictures on Commons, many photo editors have contacted him directly for book projects, magazines and websites. Although he believes in the mission of Commons, Allison prefers it when others see a photo of his they feel is appropriate that they add to the Commons rather than him uploading directly.

Allison added that he supports the mission of Commons contributors. “Occasionally, I accept paid assignments and license images but I primarily take photos because I am passionate about it and not because of any potential compensation. I think its great when people share their talents with the world and are not doing it for the money.”

Jordan Hu, Communications Intern

The day's catch at the Ensenada Fish Market

After 20 years of photographing the Fish Market of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico (aka Mercado Negro,) Tomas Castelazo is still drawn back to it for what he describes as a “good photographic and social experience.”

Castelazo says that whenever he goes to photograph the Fish Market of Ensenada, he comes out with great images. The market  is a culmination of several things that fascinate him as a photographer, he said. “The graphic environment is great,” with many shapes, textures, rhythms, abstractions and colors to photograph. Coupled with the smells, noises, tastes and interactions with the vendors, Castelazo finds himself returning often to shoot.

One day, while visiting the market with a friend, he managed to capture the close-up above of some freshly-caught Atractoscion nobilis (or White Seabass) that were on display.

“I loved the balance when I came across this image. On one side, the heads and the eyes give the picture a good rhythm. On the other, you can see the different textures and colors of the tails. I thought that they were both elements of the same subject, but presented separate and different interpretations,” said Castelazo

Brightly colored grapes and leaves in the fall

Castelazo considers himself as a “committed photographer,” who believes that “getting paid to take photographs does not necessarily mean better quality.” He operates in a middle ground between a hobbyist and a professional: “sometimes professional, sometimes hobbyist, but always committed,” he said.

From staring at cameras on the shelves of camera stores to working behind the lenses, Castelazo says his fixation with photography began when he bought his first camera at 13, a Kodak Instamatic. He worked with black and white for many years until he made the jump to digital and began experimenting with color, where he particularly enjoys exploring the different elements of his surrounding environment.

“When possible, I use photography as a language, to communicate or sensitize people with respect to environmental or social issues of our day and surroundings,” said Castelazo. ”But photography is also about giving people a visual experience that will take them out of the present experience, a moment of relaxation.”

Having taught Sociology and Photography at the high school and college level, Castelazo says as a teacher he believes that Wikipedia is a “great social experiment with incredible potential to do good.”

“It feels good to be acknowledged and recognized. But most importantly, a featured picture gives the image an opportunity to be seen and utilized in additional projects. That is where the real value is,” said Castelazo.

(View more of Castelazo’s photos)

Jordan Hu, Communications Intern

Two hippos touch snouts

William Warby actually prefers photographing animals to humans because “animals don’t get impatient while you’re adjusting camera settings.” In this Picture of the Day, however, it was Warby’s patience that was running out.

On a trip to the ZSL Whipsnade Zoo in Dunstable, England, Warby could not believe his luck when he chanced upon a pair of hippos that appeared to be playing with each other. The hippos have been at Whipsnade for as long as Warby can remember, but it was the first time in his experience that they were in a suitable part of the enclosure to get a great photo. Being at a zoo, Warby had to contend with cages, glass and walls in order to position himself in a vantage point that would give him an unobstructed view of the playful pair.

Things did not get any easier for him when rain began pouring down. Luckily he had an umbrella handy to shield himself from the rain and was positioned underneath a tree that provided some shelter. Unfortunately, the tree had some low-hanging branches that increased the degree of difficulty of the shot, as the branches crept into half of the photos taken that day. He said that on a typical day at the zoo he finds that only 5 to 10 percent of the animals lend themselves to good photography.

“When photographing animals in a zoo you don’t get to pose them in convenient positions, you have to play the hand you’re dealt on the day,” said Warby

His first introduction to photography can be attributed to his mother, who worked as a photographer’s assistant before he was born and, according to Warby, was a “pathological picture taker” throughout his childhood. His parents bought him his first camera in 1984 when he was 5 years old, a Fisher-Price Kodak 110 camera. Though his friends have often asked him to take up photography professionally, he found the experience “dispiriting” when he looked into doing some stock photography some years back.

Warby has published over 3,000 photos to Flickr under the Creative Commons License that have been used in everything from school textbooks to museum exhibits, iPhone apps and CD artwork.

“I find this kind of widespread usage of my photography far more rewarding the small financial gain I might have made by not releasing these photos under the Creative Commons license,” he said.

Warby noted that over the years he has settled into taking some types of photos more than others. He said his favorite images have subjects in nature, particularly those he shoots with a macro lens, such as insects and flowers. But as much as he’d like to photograph animals in their natural habitats, “there aren’t too many hippos roaming the English countryside.”

Instead Warby utilizes his annual membership to the Whipsnade Zoo in order to take pictures of animals he “couldn’t realistically gain access to any other way.”

A cheetah watches over its family

In the very same zoo where he shot the hippos, he managed to capture this stunning portrait of a cheetah standing guard over its family. Warby said that “cheetahs are one of the main attractions of the zoo,” so he had to wait his turn, hoping that they remained stationary long enough for him to get in range for a good shot.

This photograph was taken through a chain-link fence. To blur the diamond-shaped wire pattern sufficiently to make it invisible, Warby had to lean over as close to the fence as possible.

Although Warby hasn’t contributed directly to Wikimedia Commons until his work was added from Flickr, he stands firmly behind the goals of Commons.

“I am of the opinion that sharing cultural works benefits everybody including the creator and no project has done more than Commons to enable a culture of sharing creative works to thrive,” he said. “In my case it has dramatically expanded the audience for my photography and created a positive feedback loop that has given my photography a sense of purpose and value.”

Jordan Hu, Communications Intern

Volcanic rock strata on Tenerife

Wladyslaw Sojka (User:Taxiarchos228) captured this breathtaking picture of volcanic rock strata while vacationing on Tenerife, Spain, in December 2007. This particular shot required some precarious positioning of his Nikon D80 to capture the layers of rock strata as well as the road adjacent to it. The position in question happened to be in the middle of the road. While paying attention to any cars passing by for fear of being run over, Sojka took about 30 shots of the hairpin turn as well as the surrounding area.

While shooting the featured picture Sojka tried to capture a scene that would enable viewers to appreciate the aesthetic nature of the shot as well as the informative character of the fascinating rock layers. He chose this shot, at the juncture where the curve of the road was reducing, because it highlighted the volcanic strata in its best scale.

“The different coloured layers derive from the different eruptions. Centuries or even millenniums may have elapsed between the deposition of each layer. The white porous layer is made up of pumice fragments. The black layers are composed of basalt, emerging during eruption with low gas content. The reddish layers are also of basalt, however they were oxidized by ground water,” said Sojka.

Sojka describes his passion for photography as an “ambitious hobby,” having spent a lot of time teaching himself how to take pictures with his first compact camera in 2004. His work mainly focuses on architecture and landscape. Sojka expresses that he has a deep interest in architecture and civil engineering of all kinds of towers. As a result his pictures are mostly of churches, television towers and the historic, as well as modern architecture of bridges that are special to him. Besides contributing photos to Commons, Sojka also spends time arranging and rearranging categories to sort pictures on the gigantic media repository.

“Sometimes I also study some buildings that are commonly classified as ugly but have a unique attraction for me. The object itself and its reproduction close to its naturalness, for me, is often more important than an artistic picture,” said Sojka.

(View more of Sojka’s photos)

Jordon Hu, Communications intern

If you’re fortunate enough to have access to a computer and the Internet, you can get the sum of the world’s knowledge for free thanks to Wikipedia. But if you’re like the majority of the world that isn’t online, how can you access this amazing resource?

Alex Wafula, Wikipedian from Kenya

What if someone brings it to you by hand?

Alex Wafula, a Wikipedia editor and 3rd year student at Strathmore University, in Nairobi, Kenya, has helped start the Wikimedia Project for Kenyan Schools, where he and a team of volunteers travel to remote parts of Kenya to share offline Wikipedia with students. Wafula and the team install offline versions of English Wikipedia from a disc or memory stick in schools that have computers, and they have provide both teachers and students with tutorials on how to operate the database.

“I’ve always been fascinated in discovering new things and knowing why things work the way they do, like why’s the sky blue and not red, what makes planes fly and boats float etc. Now what’s even more fascinating for me is sharing this,” said Wafula.

Organizers of the project began by procuring a list of schools with computer labs from the Kenyan Ministry of Education. From that list they divided the schools into 3 distinct regions: Kakamega Town (Western Kenya), Nyeri Town (Central Kenya) and Mombasa City (South Eastern Kenya) with 10 schools per region and a total of 30 schools.

Project members were mostly based in Nairobi and traveled 7 hours by bus to reach Kakamega and Mombasa City, and 4 hours to Nyeri. The teams typically stay 5 days in each region. To reach their goal of 2 schools per day, the team utilize an assortment of transportation including mini-buses, tuk-tuks and motorbikes to travel from school to school, which in some cases are considerable distances apart.

In Kenyan public schools that have computers, Wafula said, students take turns in time-allotted sessions in the computer lab and share a single computer with as many as three other classmates. Wafula noted that some of the computers he dealt with at these labs were too old and needed repair before they could install the offline Wikipedia.

“In high school, I spent many hours reading encyclopedias and from the knowledge gained, I found hope of making something out of my life,” said Wafula. “It’s my hope that students who get access to offline Wikipedia will find hope of a better future for themselves and their families as well from the knowledge they gain.”

In 2003, education in public schools in Kenya became free and universal. According to Wafula, however, the number of students enrolled in the public school system has exceeded the capacity of the system, with as many 60 students (or more) being taught by a single teacher. Schools in rural areas lack enough desks and chairs to facilitate all the students and in some cases students attend class in half-built classrooms or under trees. Textbooks are shared between 2-4 students and school supplies are treasured commodities.

In this context, gaining access to hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles is a marvel.

“There is so much promise in these kids, despite the adversities they face,” said Wafula. “In their world full of challenges and uncertainties, I’m happy that I got to deliver one of their solutions.”

Story and reporting by Jordan Hu, Communications Intern

"That" Japanese Maple at the Portland Japanese Garden, by Jeremy Reding, CC-BY-SA

While strolling through the Portland Japanese Gardens on a vibrant spring day back in 2010, Jeremy Reding was struck by the magnificence of this particular maple tree. He halted mid-stride as he passed by, drawn to the tree’s amazing branch structure.

Reding noticed, “the sun backlighting the canopy beautifully,” but he struggled to find a position where he could get enough of tree in the shot. Using his Canon PowerShot SD750, he had to “essentially lay on the ground to capture the canopy and the branch structure.”

His focus was including as much of the canopy as possible while still framing enough of the trunk to ground the image. He noted that it was particularly tricky doing so without a tripod.

Reding succeeded, and the remarkable photo of the Japanese Maple became a finalist in the 2010 Wikimidia Commons Picture of the Year process. The tree has also garnered its share of attention: there is even a special Flickr group called “Under ‘That’ Japanese Maple Tree at Portland’s Japanese Garden.”

In his general shooting, Reding said he is interested in the “banal changes that occur around us everyday.” He often studies the “quality of light throughout the day, the way materials age, or seasonal variations in landscape.”

Reding has had all sorts of cameras as far back as he can remember, but it wasn’t until he spent a semester studying outside the U.S. in 1999 that he began to take photography seriously. Seizing this unique chance to “capture the world” around him, Reding brought along a Canon Rebel SLR, as well as a Sony Mavica, which took 3.5 inch disks. Because he was abroad for an entire semester, he brought along 300 disks in his backpack.

“I use photography as a means of capturing a moment in time, something I can refer back to and immediately be transported back to the place where I took that photograph,” he said.

Reding feels honored that so many people found this image to be as inspiring as he did. He hopes this picture will motivate viewers to “get out and explore the world around you. Go to the same place multiple times to see it at different times during the day, different seasons, etc.”

Story by Jordan Hu, Communications Intern
Reporting by Elaine Mao, Communications Intern