On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 5:13 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch@gmail.com> wrote:
There was an idea brainstormed a little while back with me and a few other folks about seeking funding to have a "Wiki Loves Women" photography event that wanted photographers to take photographs of women - and this wouldn't be some broad crowdsourced thing like WLM, we would work with photographers, various "models" etc and make this legit with releases, etc - doing whatever we needed them to be better represented doing, so to say. So, wearing certain articles of clothing (i.e. "go go boots"), certain make up looks or uses, hairstyles, - places that are often poorly represented regarding "women's stuff" (i.e. men don't get manicures that often, sorry) even as extreme as sex acts, I also wanted to just have women doing "things" like mowing the lawn and planting flowers or pan searing salmon or whatever things need videos to represent them (and no, these women wouldn't be nude :P). The latter was inspired by Jenny Geigel Mikulay's work at Alverno College where she had her students (it's a women's college) make films of things like playing drums, the art museum building kinetic architecture time-lapsed, etc. All of these videos have been uploaded to Commons. 

Someday I'll do it =) I can see it being a project that would be a perfect fit for Kickstarter.



Commons' coverage of platform shoes or high-heeled shoes for example is appalling, given the thousands of designer shoes out there:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Platform_shoes
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:High-heeled_shoes

Generally, Commons lacks "Pinterest" ...

http://pinterest.com/ 

... meaning that the sort of imagery that is characteristic of a women-dominated site like Pinterest is very underrepresented in Commons.

As the WMF board resolution last year noted, the situation with model releases for pictures taken in private situations is dire in Commons. So many photos of this type are poached from Flickr without bothering to ask the Flickr account holder for model consent. The best way of showing up the present inadequacies would indeed be to do some work where all the t's are crossed, and all the i's dotted: proper copyright release, proper consent forms. It could be a model to be emulated.

Andreas