The Wiki Loves Monuments competition has begun this Friday, 14th September. We chose this date as it is the beginning of a month-long holiday period and especially as it is the beginning of the extended weekend of the Jewish new year.
 
We marked the opening of the competition with three tours in areas with high saturation of heritage sites and monuments – the agricultural village of Mikveh Israel near Tel Aviv; the German Colony in Haifa and the old city of Safed.
 
These three tours are the first of 25 tours around the country (and four more tours are in planning stages) to which 310 people have registered so far. The tours are the fruit of joint collaboration with the Council for Preservation of Heritage Sites and are guided by expert guides provided by the Council.
 
Images of the tour to Mikveh Israel:
 
The first Wiki Loves Monuments event in Israel took place last Friday when a photography workshop was held by the Galitz school of photography in which tips were given for taking quality pictures focusing on composition and lighting of images. An additional workshop is scheduled for next Friday. A total of 90 people have registered for both workshops.
 
Images of the first workshop:
 
 
We also attended the Israeli Photography Conference – an annual conference held at the Tel Aviv Basketball Stadium – attended by about 4000 amateur and professional photographers (this year the key note speaker was Spencer Tunick). We operated an information booth regarding the competition and more than 500 photographers visited our booth, viewed the winning pictures from last year's competition, and took our information leaflet and a complimentary Wikipedia pen. This booth had very high visibility and achieved outreach to specific, relevant, target audience. Images of the booth:
 
 
 
We hope that the successful opening events are the beginning of a fruitful and successful competition and wish you all a happy New Year.

Deror