[Commons-l] Professional photographers on Commons: sucess story

[Rama Rama]

Greetings to everybody,

On pfctdayelise's suggestion who's never afraid of rejoicing for
something, I'd like to request a round of applause for Mikhail
Evstafiev.

Mikhail Evstafiev is a Russian artist, painter, writer and
photographer. He has covered the wars in Bosnia and Chechnya (hint:
these are dangerous places and recent periods before Wikipedia was
born, two factors which usually make it difficult to gather images),
and various political and cultural events.

A while ago, Evstafiev was contacted to enquire whether he would agree
to licence some of his photographs under Free licences. He did, and
since then he has created an account and uploaded quite a few
photographs himself. His work can be seen at :
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mikhail_Evstafiev
and his account is
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Evstafiev

What should we do from there ? my suggestions:
1) On the moral aspect: Rejoice: there are really interesting people
on Commons.
2) On the social aspect: Do our outmost so that people like Evstafiev
feel at home on Commons and really become part of the family (Seek
them on the Internet, ask them to join, explain how it is around here
and how contributing to Commons is a symbiosis, provide technical
support)
3) On the technical aspect: Watch this sort of images over and over
and over again and learn how to compose photos that strong ourselves.

Cheers !
  -- Rama