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Round 1 of Picture of the Year 2025 voting is open!
2024 Picture of the Year:Mundari man polishing the horns of one of his Watusi cows using a mixture of cow urine and ash as a ritualistic and protective practice in a temporary cattle camp in Terekeka, South Sudan.
Dear Wikimedian,
Wikimedia Commons is happy to announce that the 2025 Picture of the Year competition is now open. This year is the twentieth edition of the annual Wikimedia Commons photo competition, which recognizes exceptional contributions by users on Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia users are invited to vote for their favourite images featured on Commons during the last year (2025) to produce a single Picture of the Year.
Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year are all entered in this competition. These images include professional animal and plant shots, breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historical images, photographs portraying the world's best architecture, impressive human portraits, and so much more.
For your convenience, we have sorted the images into topical categories. Two rounds of voting will be held: In the first round, you may vote for as many images as you like. The top 30 overall and the top 5% of most popular images in each category will continue to the final. In the final round, you may vote for just five images to become the Picture of the Year.
Round 2 of Picture of the Year 2025 voting is open!
Dear Wikimedian,
You are receiving this message because we noticed that you previously voted in the Picture of the Year contest. Wikimedia users are invited to vote for their favourite images featured on Commons during the last year (2025) to produce a single Picture of the Year.
Hundreds of images that have been rated Featured Pictures by the international Wikimedia Commons community in the past year were entered in this competition. These images include professional animal and plant shots, breathtaking panoramas and skylines, restorations of historical images, photographs portraying the world's best architecture, impressive human portraits, and so much more.
In this second and final round, you may vote for a maximum of five images. The image with the most votes will become the Picture of the Year 2025.
Announcing the Winners of Picture of the Year 2025!
Hi everyone,
Wikimedia Commons is pleased to finally announce the winners of this year's Picture of the Year 2025 contest! We had some truly incredible finalists to choose from, but the community has spoken.
Here are your top three winning images:
First place: The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 9, 2023, leaving widespread destruction in the Rimal area. Attribution: WAFA (Q2915969) / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Second place: Baby cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus) sleeping at Cape cross, Namibia. Attribution: Giles Laurent / CC-BY-SA 4.0
Third place: A gigantic jet photographed from the International Space Station by astronaut Nichole Ayers. Attribution: public domain
You can view the full results and see where all your favorite images placed here: Full 2025 Results
I also want to highlight what an incredible turnout we had. In the second round, we saw a massive jump in both the number of users voting and the total votes cast. We had exactly 13,979 votes cast by 3,509 users! To put that in perspective, last year we had 7,403 votes from 2,837 users. It is amazing to see that level of growth and community engagement.
Thank you to everyone who voted, helped organize, and generally made the contest such a huge success this year!
Dear member of the Commons Photographers User Group,
I hope you’re well and enjoy your time as a photographer on Wikimedia Commons. In my role of the new chair of the user group, I have a couple of updates to share with you.
After the election, the new board met for the first time on March 21 and immediately got to work. We elected the organization’s officers and decided to move from quarterly to monthly board meetings. We believe meeting more frequently will create more opportunities to serve our members effectively and help move the group forward.
We also successfully applied for a pre-conference at the upcoming Wikimania in Paris (July 21–25). If you’re planning to attend the conference, please consider joining us on July 21th for a day full of conversations about photography and Commons. Please sign up here if you’re interested.
And finally, it’s my pleasure to invite you to our first online meeting, which will take place on May 31. Our member Wojciech, an experienced concert photographer, will give a talk on photographing orchestras during live performances. I’m especially excited that we’ll have the opportunity to meet online again and am very much looking forward to this event.
We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images.
Comments Support Amount of detail is fine for a telephoto lens at 400mm+. Good composition of the stage. --Benlisquare 11:22, 23 May 2026 (UTC)
We also invite you to take part in the categorization of recently promoted quality images.
Comments Support Amount of detail is fine for a telephoto lens at 400mm+. Good composition of the stage. --Benlisquare 11:22, 23 May 2026 (UTC)
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