You would need to explain what we can do better than:
http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/
Higher res yes but beyond that?
That's easy:
- Available under a free license. This is important as it means the images can be
distributed more widely, and reused for more things. Also, being able to have them on
Wikipedia makes the images a lot more accessible to a worldwide audience (how many
international people will encounter IOE compared to Wikipedia?)
- Multiple angles - most images on IOE have a single perspective only, whereas this sort
of project could cover the buildings/monuments/etc. from multiple perspectives (or even if
it doesn't aim to do that, it still will as lots of photos will invariably be from
different angles from the IOE ones). In particular, images of the insides of the buildings
would be very valuable, and aren't always (at all?) available on IOE.
- More recent - some objects will have changed since the IOE pictures were taken. e.g. [1]
no longer has a roof on it - see [2].
- Continuous updating of the catalogue - IOE shows things as they were 10 years ago, back
in 2001. New buildings have been added, some removed (e.g. demolished/burned
down/relegated in importance), etc.
- Links to context: there are a huge number of articles that can be written/improved
around all of these objects, which could easily be linked in to a project aimed at taking
images of all of them. That can also be extended to multiple languages.
- Videos: a lot of cameras nowadays can also make video recordings, and videos e.g. of
circumnavigating the buildings would be very useful for Wikipedia users. In some cases,
sound recordings would also be useful - again, modern cameras can make these.
- Oh yes, higher resolution. :-)
I really like the idea of doing a large-scale competition like this, and I think
there's an awful lot to gain - if someone is willing to put the effort into driving
the project forward.
Thanks,
Mike
[1]
http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/Default.aspx?id=457776
[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Brook_Street_Chapel,_Manchester