Wikinews:Writing a Photo essay
- See also: Wikinews:Writing a photo essay
This is an essay on using and contributing to Wikinews. The contents are strongly recommended practices, but may not be enforced official policy; however, they may supplement, comment upon, or offer guidance to interpreting official policy. Links to official policies can be found in the Wikinews introduction. |
This is an essay, recommended rather than official policy; it may be useful to assist in the practical application of policy. |
Introduction |
Policies and guidelines |
While Wikinews features a variety of content, the project's mainstay is the classic news article. However, wiki tools are ideally suited to constructing an article with the primary focus on photographs instead of text. This short essay is intended to guide people through the process of creating such an article. There is considerably less need to be intimately familiar with the style guide. Perhaps most critically, it is no longer required to write out the three paragraphs usually viewed as the minimum for an article, although you must still explain the context in which the photographs were taken as readers are not expected to know, regardless of how 'big' the event might be.
Key points from the more generalised essay on article construction still apply, namely:
- Articles must be timely. They are never backdated to match an event, and the event they cover should be within the last few days.
- Articles go through three stages, {{develop}} while the piece is constructed and formatted; {{review}} when the article is, in your opinion, good enough to be published; lastly, {{publish}} when the article has been checked by a contributor who the community has granted review privileges to and passed.
- The neutral point of view policy is non-negotiable.
Examples
[edit]Before starting, it might be helpful to look at some already published photoessays on wikinews (keeping in mind, older articles may not meet current review standards, including image copyright policy):
- There are currently 105 articles in Category:Photo essays.
- 4 June 2024: The Ancient Pyramids of the World, a new photo exhibition by Viktor Pinchuk took place in Crimea
- 29 May 2024: Exhibition featuring ethnic music from around the world opens in Crimea
- 20 May 2024: Citizen journalist, Viktor Pinchuk — gives travel presentation in Sevastapol
- 16 April 2024: Holyday of wandering mzungu, presentation of the book by Russian adventurer took place in the Crimean capital
- 25 March 2024: Russian travel writer Viktor Pinchuk presents book Third African trip in Bakhchysarai, Crimea
- 7 September 2023: Russian travel writer Viktor Pinchuk presents book Indian dreams in Sevastopol, Crimea
- 1 August 2023: Russian travel writer Viktor Pinchuk presents book Japan for free in Simferopol, Crimea
- 30 March 2023: Russian photographer Viktor Pinchuk presents nude album NUances of fantasy
- 15 February 2023: Coolum to host Grand Final of Tier 1 women's cricket final on Australia's Sunshine Coast
- 3 May 2022: Ballarat residents protest for climate action
- 2 May 2022: Brothers Sunshine Coast pick up first win in senior rugby at Australia's University of the Sunshine Coast
- 31 May 2019: Toronto's Anime North 2019 brings thousands of fans together
- 25 March 2019: Fur fans flock to Toronto's Furnal Equinox 2019
- 29 November 2018: Wikinews attends 2018 Bangalore ComicCon
- 30 October 2018: 22nd annual ILGA-Europe conference meets in Brussels: in pictures
- 30 October 2018: In pictures: thousands attend 16th annual Taiwan Pride
- 31 July 2018: 40th Berlin Christopher Street Day celebration attracts thousands: in pictures
- 31 July 2018: Total lunar eclipse occurs in July 2018
- 30 July 2018: First-ever Dublin Trans Pride attracts hundreds
- 11 July 2018: London Pride organisers apologise after protestors interrupt parade
- 4 July 2018: In Pictures: Helsinki Pride 2018 ends after record number of attendees
- 3 July 2018: Dublin Pride 2018 attracts tens of thousands of people
- 1 June 2018: Photo report: Anime North convention brings fans to Toronto
- 21 May 2018: Belgian LGBT refuge shelter announced during annual Brussels Pride
- 25 March 2018: Culture of creativity features at Furnal Equinox 2018
- 8 December 2017: Wikinews attends ComicCon in Bangalore, India
- 31 May 2017: For fans, by fans: Toronto anime event 2017 among continent's largest
- 27 March 2017: Fans unite at Toronto Comicon, meet Degrassi stars
- 9 September 2016: Vietnam's Le Van Cong wins gold in men's -49kg powerlifting at Rio Paralympics
- 7 September 2016: Pop culture celebrated at Fan Expo Canada 2016 in Toronto
- 9 April 2016: Thousands march in London calling for David Cameron's resignation over tax affairs
- 14 March 2015: Reflections, Lichtenstein, two new exhibitions at Edinburgh's Modern One
- 31 January 2015: Millions march in France and around the world in support of Charlie Hebdo
- 7 November 2014: Edinburgh's 'Million Mask March' flies distinctly Scottish colours
- 18 September 2014: Noosa win 2014 Sunshine Coast Rugby Union premiership
- 27 August 2014: Wikinews wanders the Referendum-year Edinburgh Festival Fringe
- 17 August 2014: University defeat Maroochydore in round 14 of 2014 Sunshine Coast Rugby Union season
- 18 May 2014: Anti-budget protest descends on Brisbane Australia
- 16 May 2014: Small protest seeking justice for victims of Franco held in Madrid
- 4 May 2014: University defeat Toads in 2014 Sunshine Coast Rugby Union round two
- 27 April 2014: University defeat Caloundra in first round of 2014 Sunshine Coast Rugby Union season
- 22 April 2014: Glasgow cannabis enthusiasts celebrate 'green' on city green
- 6 April 2014: Crash Test Hunniez defeat Devotchkas in Roller Derby contest
- 31 March 2014: Eleventh Docudays UA concludes
- 23 March 2014: Russia Crimean action protests held outside Downing Street in London
- 23 March 2014: Docudays UA eleventh edition opens
- 10 March 2014: Ukraine's Lyudmyla Pavlenko wins gold in 2014 Winter Paralympics
- 8 March 2014: Canada routs Sweden in sledge hockey at Winter Paralympics
- 8 March 2014: Winter Paralympics Opening Ceremony takes place in Sochi
- 6 March 2014: Preparations underway for start of 2014 Winter Paralympics
- 16 December 2013: Fundosa ONCE defeats Servigest Burgos 80-20 in Spain's top wheelchair basketball league
- 10 December 2013: Embassies across London lower their flags in honour of Nelson Mandela
- 11 October 2013: 2013 Autumn Old and Antique Bookfair continues in Madrid
- 29 September 2013: Diego Costa scores Atlético Madrid's winning goal against Real Madrid
- 29 September 2013: Atlético de Madrid defeats Real Madrid 1-0 in 2013 derby
- 20 September 2013: Australian solar racing team parades at Sydney campus send-off
- 8 September 2013: Coastal Assassins get wins at roller derby event on Australia's Sunshine Coast
- 1 September 2013: Maroochydore win 2013 Sunshine Coast Rugby Union Grand Final
- 11 August 2013: Uni defeat Nambor as 2013 Sunshine Coast Rugby Union season ends
- 30 July 2013: Noosa get bonus point win against Nambour in round 18 of Sunshine Coast Rugby Union
- 26 July 2013: Ninth World Games open in Santiago de Cali, Colombia
- 21 July 2013: Nineteenth Maccabiah Games open in Jerusalem
- 21 July 2013: Noosa defeat Caloundra in Sunshine Coast Rugby Union round seventeen
- 6 July 2013: San Fermín de los Navarros church in Madrid celebrates patron day
- 1 July 2013: Pride in London 2013: in pictures
- 30 May 2013: 'Cartoons country' festival in Moscow: in pictures
- 19 May 2013: Noosa defeat University in Sunshine Coast Rugby Union round nine
- 7 May 2013: Caloundra defeat Nambour 24-10 in week seven of Sunshine Coast Rugby Union
- 21 April 2013: Maroochydore defeat University in week five of Sunshine Coast Rugby Union
- 31 March 2013: Thousands take to streets protesting 'ratbag's Bedroom Tax
- 31 March 2013: Canberrans spend Easter outside: in pictures
- 10 March 2013: Dust storm covers Tokyo: in pictures
- 5 March 2013: Record snowfall in Japan: in pictures
- 20 February 2013: Spain starts 2013 IPC Alpine World Championships with first and fifth place finishes
- 10 February 2013: Real Madrid defeats Sevilla 4-1 in La Liga play
- 13 December 2012: Twelve countries compete on second day of 2012 Nor-Am Cup
- 13 December 2012: Australia takes podium for standing men's giant slalom on second day of 2012 IPC NorAm Cup
- 12 December 2012: Japanese skiers compete at IPC Nor-Am Cup Super G
- 12 December 2012: Canadian skiers compete at IPC Nor-Am Cup Super G
- 12 December 2012: Australian skiers compete at IPC Nor-Am Cup Super G
- 8 September 2012: Paralympics GB finishes 5-a-side football in seventh place at Paralympics
- 31 August 2012: Day two of Paralympic judo underway in London
- 31 August 2012: Australia and South Africa men's national wheelchair basketball teams play in their 2012 Paralympics opener
- 29 August 2012: Paralympic cyclists test out the London Velodrome
- 29 August 2012: Turkey men's wheelchair basketball team practices ahead of 2012 Summer Paralympics
- 29 August 2012: Canadians express optimism regarding medal potential at 2012 Summer Paralympics
- 27 August 2012: Australians make Paralympic Village uniquely their own
- 26 August 2012: 2012 Paralympic Village occupied by competitors as nations ready for the Games
- 7 July 2012: WorldPride London 2012: In pictures
- 30 January 2012: Queensland state election shorts: January 30, 2012
- 18 March 2011: In pictures: Japan earthquake and tsunami
- 3 May 2010: Chilean earthquakes in the O'Higgins Region: photoessay
- 18 March 2010: Chilean earthquakes: in pictures
- 1 February 2010: Building collapses, leaving four dead in Hong Kong
- 15 January 2010: Haitian earthquake: in pictures
- 11 August 2009: Wikinews international report: "Anonymous" holds anti-Scientology protests worldwide
- 27 May 2009: Fanime convention winds down in San Jose, California
- 16 September 2008: Wikinews visits the 2008 Reno Air Races
- 3 April 2006: Photo Essay: Cherry Blossoms Bloom in DC
- 18 March 2006: Photoessay: The Idiotarod: When Good Shopping Carts Go Bad
- 2 March 2006: Photoessay: Fat Tuesday Easy in DC
- 17 February 2006: Photo essay: Valentine's Day at the U.S. Viet Nam War Memorial
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Headline
[edit]All articles need a title. For detailed instructions on how to choose a title, see the style guide, but in general there are a couple of key points to remember:
- Titles should be downstyle, which means that only proper nouns should be capitalised. Example: Fanime convention winds down in San Jose, California is correct, but Fanime Convention Winds Down in San Jose, California is not acceptable per the style guide.
- Use the present tense. Fanime convention winds down in San Jose, California not Fanime convention wound down in San Jose, California
- Write the most important, or unique thing about the article in question
- Try to use the active voice. Leader goes to shop is much better than Shop visited by leader.
Remember, titles can be changed. If you have a problem renaming an article you are working on, leave a note on the talk page with the {{flag}} or {{editprotected}} templates to call in help. Do explain what your preferred title is.
Lede
[edit]All articles start with a date template. This date reflects when the article is published (which may or may not be when the event took place). Generally:
{{date|October 31, 2024}}
{{date|{{subst:#time:F j, Y}}}}
The second form will automatically get turned into the first form when you save the page.
In most normal articles an infobox is used. These can interfere with the presentation of a photoessay, best to avoid.
You should write your introduction as soon as possible. Since you are writing a photoessay, this need not be the length of a normal article. However, you still must address the 5W and H (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How) of your story. The introduction should also give context to the photos in your article — for an international audience. Its important that the audience know what the photos are about, and why the photographs are important or noteworthy. The introduction should also tell the reader what news event the essay is focused on. Remember that a photoessay is not just a random gallery of photos; it is also a news article, which must be reporting some specific event.
The photos
[edit]Uploading
[edit]One of the goals of Wikinews, is to allow information to be dispersed, reused, modified, &c. (See the Wikipedia article on the Free Culture Movement for more information on the philosophical underpinnings). To this end, if you contribute to Wikinews, you must allow anyone to copy and modify your photos in their own derivative works. We use the website Wikimedia Commons to host our photos. As long as you have a unified account (See Special:MergeAccount to get one), your Wikinews login should work at Commons too (As well as Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and several other sites).
To upload an image at commons visit Commons:Upload and follow the instructions. Please make sure to give your images descriptive names (Dog_at_the_park_in_london_england.jpg is much more useful than picture012312142.jpg) and that you upload the highest resolution possible. If you are unsure if you did this correctly, feel free to ask a Wikinewsie in the chatroom (IRC).
Once your file is uploaded, you should be able to use it anywhere on Wikinews (and in several other places)
Note: if you wish to upload fair use/dealing images (which should not be used in photoessays) see Wikinews:Fair use.
Adding to your article
[edit]- See also mw:help:Images
Normal images
[edit]All of these examples will use File:example.jpg. It should also be noted that you can prefix your images with Image: (Image:Example.jpg and File:example.jpg are equivalent).
The easiest way to add an image to your article is as follows
[[File:Example.jpg|thumb|right|300px|An example image.]]
Which places the image on the right:
The first part File:Example.jpg
specifies the image name. Then comes thumb
, which specifies it should have a caption. Next is right
, meaning it should be on the right of the screen (As opposed to say the left side, or centered). Then comes the size. 300px
means that the image will be resized to be 300 pixels wide. Last is the caption. It can contain links, bold text, etc using normal wiki markup. If the image comes from elsewhere, credit to the original author should be added to this caption (if you are the original author, such credit is optional). Credit lines are added as follows (see image on left):
[[file:Example.jpg|thumb|left|300px|An example image.{{image credit|[http://example.com An example photographer]}}]]
Galleries
[edit]Galleries are a way to display several images. Example:
<gallery> File:Example.png|An example image File:Example.svg|Another example File:Example.jpg File:718Smile.svg|A caption with a [[w:link|link]]. </gallery>
Makes this:
-
An example image
-
Another example
-
A caption with a link.
This allows user to see a summary of the images available, and then they can click on them to see larger versions. However since your article is primarily about the pictures, you may want to have bigger thumbnails:
<gallery widths='200px' heights='200px' perrow='2'> File:Example.png|An example image File:Example.svg|Another example File:Example.jpg File:718smiley.svg|A caption with a [[w:link|link]]. </gallery>
Makes:
-
An example image
-
Another example
-
A caption with a link.
widths correspond to the widths of each box a picture takes up, heights corresponds to the height. Note, it is important to set both. perrow specifies the number of images per row. Last of all, you can also specify a caption for your gallery. You might use this to separate your gallery into different sections. (Note: you cannot use wikiformating in your caption with exception to links).
<gallery caption="Some ''Examples''"> File:Example.png|An example image File:Example.svg|Another example File:Example.jpg File:718smiley.svg|A caption with a [[w:link|link]]. </gallery>
-
An example image
-
Another example
-
A caption with a link.
image chooser ({{Picture select}})
[edit]This is a method to display the images one at a time. For example
{{picture select|width=210px |[[File:Example.png|200px|center|An example image (Alt text for blind/text browsers/tooltip)]] <br/>An Example Image (Caption for everyone) |[[File:Example.svg|200px|center|Another example]] Another example |[[File:Example.jpg|center|200px|]] |[[File:718smiley.svg|center|200px|]] }}
makes:
An Example Image (Caption for everyone)
Another example
The overall width parameter is the width of the whole box. This should be a little bit bigger than the image width, or the border will be crunched. This template can support a large number of images. In addition the tabs can change from being numbers to being any arbitrary text. For a complex example see the page source of Wikinews:Picture_of_the_Year_2008/round_1#Candidates. For more information on this template, see its documentation.
Ticker slideshow
[edit]I'm adding this for completeness, but you probably should not use this on your article unless you're really sure its a good idea.
It's possible to create a picture slideshow on your article. For example:
{{ticker|engine=none|speed=1.5|multiple=first |options=Ticker_strLeft-%00 Ticker_strLinkText-%00 Ticker_strRight-%00 |customSrc= *[[File:Example.png|200px|An example image (Alt text for blind/text browsers/tooltip)]] An Example Image (Caption for everyone) *[[File:Example.svg|200px|Another example]] Another example *[[File:Example.jpg|200px|]] *[[File:718smiley.svg|200px|]] }}
Creates:
engine=none
specifies no transition (other choice is fade). speed=1.5
specifies 1.5x speed (you'd probably want it much slower on an article). Note it's somewhat disorienting if the images change height. To work arround this, either make all the images the same height, or wrap each image in a div that has a specific height set. For example (using the fade transition):
<div style="heiht:230px;"> {{ticker|engine=none|multiple=other |options=Ticker_strLeft-%00 Ticker_strLinkText-%00 Ticker_strRight-%00 |customSrc= *[[File:Example.png|200px|An example image (Alt text for blind/text browsers/tooltip)]] An Example Image (Caption for everyone) *[[File:Example.svg|200px|Another example]] Another example *[[File:Example.jpg|200px|]] *[[File:718smiley.svg|200px|]] }} </div>
makes:
Which, as you'll notice, does not bounce arround the text below it. It should be noted the fade transition is not as well tested. See {{ticker}} for more information.
Sources
[edit]Last of all, don't forget to cite your sources. All information you add to the article must be sourced. If you came about your information through original reporting (for example, by asking people questions at the event), remember to tag your article with {{original}} and add notes to the talk page. See Wikinews:Original reporting for details on procedures involving original reporting.