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Wikipedia:A picture of you

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Philip Mould kindly provided this picture of himself; it's used on his Wikipedia biography.

Hello. You may have been directed to this page because Wikipedia (or one of our sister projects) has an article about you (or mentioning you; or someone that you represent) that would benefit from a picture of you. If so, welcome to Wikipedia!

Here's some guidance on how you can provide an image.

Why does Wikipedia want your picture?

If you know a Wikipedian, or can get to a local Wikipedia meetup, you can ask them to take a picture of you, as we did for María Irigoyen Pérez. Or ask a friend or relative, if they're happy to make a picture available under an open licence.

Wikipedia uses images that document the things we write about, that includes people. Biography articles benefit from a photograph of the subject, and images can break up long sections of text in other articles, making them more attractive, and easier to understand for people whose English or reading skills are limited.

Who can use the images?

We hold our images at our sister project, Wikimedia Commons. That also makes them available for use not just on this, the English-language Wikipedia, but all 300+ Wikipedias, in languages from French to Japanese, Urdu to Cornish.

We also think such images should be made available for everyone to reuse. Therefore your images will help not only Wikipedia, but also the creators of other tools and services. You should be aware that this may include the creation of commercial products. The image's copyright holder can opt for the right to be identified as the image creator to be protected in all cases.

Skeeter Reece's wife wanted the article about her husband to be improved with this image, so she asked the photographer who took it and persuaded him to release it under an open licence

You must not use pictures where you do not own the copyright, or you aren't licensed to do it!

This usually means you should take the image yourself. There are a few exceptions to this rule, so if you are in doubt, please ask. You must not upload pictures taken by professional photographers, even if you or your employer paid them, if they did not agree a transfer of copyright. In some countries (e.g. Germany), transfer of copyright is not possible. In others (e.g. the United States) it can normally occur only through a written, signed document (including electronic signatures on digital documents).

If your family member, colleague or friend took the image, even at your request, they are the copyright holder and should be the person to release it—please direct them to this page.

Suitable pictures

An image of you used on Wikipedia will be seen very widely, so pick a good one - well lit, and in focus! A head-and-shoulders or waist-length portrait may be best, but if you're known for an activity, like rock climbing or public speaking, a picture of you doing that can work well. Avoid group shots where you may be indistinguishable from others. A recent picture is best, unless you're well known for something you did many years ago.

Please supply a picture at the highest resolution you can - so that it will look good on a big screen, or if printed.

Ways to submit photos

If you can upload an image to any of the following services, or already have an image there, you can just apply or declare a suitable licence (one that says that anyone may use the image, even commercially). Various licences may be used, some of which require that anyone using the image must give you credit for it; and must use the same licence if they make another ("derivative") image using yours.

Don't forget to tell someone on Wikipedia that you have made an image available! They will then copy your images to Wikimedia Commons. Keep in mind that the image must be posted on the account of the person who owns the copyright (typically the photographer).

Facebook

As above for Instagram. Post a photo to your own non-private Facebook page, where the text of the post (or a comment from you underneath it) includes a clear statement such as:

I agree to publish this image under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.

or if you wanted to release the image as completely public domain, requiring no credit attribution:

I agree to publish this image under the Creative Commons 0 Public Domain Dedication 1.0 licence.

You can also edit the post text of an old image, or reply with a clear licence statement in a comment.

Don't forget to let us know when you have done this.

Instagram

A correctly licenced image in an Instagram post might look like this - it's a selfie by singer Nilesh Ahuja

Post the photo to your own (non-private) Instagram account, stating in the image's description or a comment on it that you are releasing that image under a suitable licence.

A suitable licence statement would be

I agree to publish this image under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.

or if you wanted to release the image as completely public domain, requiring no credit attribution:

I agree to publish this image under the Creative Commons 0 Public Domain Dedication 1.0 licence.

You can also edit an old image to include such a licence sentence in its caption, or post a reply to it that includes the licence sentence.

Once that's been posted, you can ask somebody who knows more about Wikipedia to add the image to your Wikipedia article. (If you don't know anybody who can help, you can post a message about it on your Wikipedia article's talk page, or at Wikipedia:Teahouse, including a link to the Instagram post you want copied to Wikipedia.)

Twitter (X)

Example of a tweet from Sarah Ashton-Cirillo releasing a selfie under a CC licence

As above for Facebook and Instagram. Post a photo in a public tweet, where the text of that tweet (or a further tweet in the same thread) makes a clear licence statement such as:

I agree to publish this image under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence.

or if you wanted to release the image as completely public domain, requiring no credit attribution:

I agree to publish this image under the Creative Commons 0 Public Domain Dedication 1.0 licence.

You can also reply to an old photo tweet with such a licence statement, saying that you are now releasing that photo under that licence.

Flickr

Organisations with images on Flickr, can share them by using a suitable licence there. This one shows Stephanie Villedrouin and was kindly made available there by the World Travel and Tourism Council. It's fine if the picture shows you working rather than being posed.

Images on Flickr can be transferred provided that they have already been published under an appropriate license.[1] The Upload/Flickr page summarises which of the licenses available in Flickr allow images to be re-used in Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Your own website

If you have a suitable selfie (a self-taken photo) on your own website, you can license that image under one of the free licenses acceptable to Wikipedia. A direct way to do that is to post a note at your webpage stating that, for example, the image in question is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Alongside, please state that you are the author of the image and consider indicating where and when the image was taken.

Then let us know, and we can upload the image to Wikimedia Commons, with no extra steps required of you.

Wikimedia Commons

If you have a Wikipedia account you can upload a photo directly to Wikimedia Commons. Account holders may also use the Upload Wizard to add more than one image at once. You can log-in or sign-up here.

The default licence on Wikimedia Commons is CC by-sa 4.0 ("Creative Commons, attribution, share-alike"). If you're happy with that, please use the page for uploading images to Commons.

Note that this method may not be suitable if the image have already been published elsewhere.

By email

If you would like to submit a photo of yourself by email, you can contact volunteers at photosubmission@wikimedia.org. Please include the photograph in question, along with a statement that you own the copyright on it, and an agreement to release it under a specified free license (our recommendation is CC by-sa 4.0). If you don't own the copyright, please ask the photographer or copyright owner to send in a release instead. The "declaration of consent" may be used if desired.

More about Wikipedia

If you are new to Wikipedia, and want to learn more, you can read our introduction, ask questions at The Teahouse or complete a short online training course at The Wikipedia Adventure. We hope you will stick around!

See also

References

Shortcut
  1. ^ Mabbett, Andy (2011). "Open-licensing your images. What it means and how to do it". pigsonthewing.org.uk.
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