WikiPortraits generates 820 million views in one month thanks to the World Cup!

First, some exciting news! WikiPortraits has its biggest month ever with 820 million monthly views in July 2026, thanks in part to our World Cup coverage. For example, Bryan Berlin's portrait of Lionel Messi during the Argentina versus Egypt match has been used 174 times across 90 different language Wikipedias — including as the lead photo on the English Wikipedia biography — and generated over 20 million views in under one month.

Another update! We continue to grow! WikiPortraits has grown from 19 new-to-the-Wikiverse volunteer contributors with a Wikimedia account in 2024 to 188 new Wikiverse volunteers as of August 7, 2026. And these volunteers have generated literally hundreds of millions of views across Wikimedia platforms.

WikiPortraits photographers were on the move in July, traveling to Wyoming to cover "America's original extreme sport," to New Orleans's Essence Festival of Culture, to the 60th Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and more locations, all while adding thousands of freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons along the way.

Plus, check out our coverage of the BraveMaker Film Festival in Redwood City, California, a volunteer spotlight featuring Obinna Friday Matthew in Lagos, a Lagos-based photographer and co-founder of Wiki Photo Africa, and updates from Wikimania and a new metrics tool by Kevin Payravi.

Covering the Indian Relay, America's original extreme sport

In July, WikiPortraits traveled to Sheridan, Wyoming to cover the Indian Relay, a bareback horse racing sport in which teams gallop around a track, leaping between horses at full speed at the end of each lap. Photographers Hongyi Zhou (User:Runawaymo), Jennifer 8. Lee, and Kevin Payravi covered the event and uploaded some stunning shots to Wikimedia Commons.

Largely sustained by Indigenous tribes and First Nations across the Great Plains and western Canada, it's often called America's original extreme sport. Competitions range from major events like the Sheridan WYO Rodeo and Calgary Stampede to youth and women's divisions, with riders often competing in tribal regalia for cash prizes and belt buckles.

Not only was there no Wikipedia article for Indian Relay, there was nothing about the sport on Wikidata, either. So, WikiPortraits created a new Wikipedia article, and  37 new Wikidata entries matching "Indian Relay."

Photographing Cardi B at the 2026 Essence Festival

In July, WikiPortraits and AfroCROWD traveled to New Orleans to cover the Essence Festival of Culture, the largest annual celebration of Black culture and music in the United States. Held July 3–5, 2026 at the Caesars Superdome and the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, the festival drew nearly 500,000 attendees for performances by Cardi B and other top entertainers.

The WikiPortraits team of photographers, including Gabe Brooks, Danielle Campbell, London Vallery, Nicholas Nichols, Kolby Webster, LaShawnda Jones, Hongyi Zhou, Tori Allen, Keith Nixon Jr., Mylan Gray, and Jada Yuan, documented the festival for Wikimedia Commons.

Their freely licensed images of performers and festival life have already been added to many Wikimedia articles. For example, Cardi B's headshot has been used across multiple language Wikipedias.

In July, WikiPortraits photographers covered the 60th Montreux Jazz Festival held each year on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland.

With support from Wikimedia Switzerland, WikiPortraits sent five photographers from three countries to this year's Montreux Jazz Festival – Quentin Thompson, Kalai Ramu, and Camila Alves, all based in Switzerland, Ethan Gilham, from South Africa, and Jane Yu, from the United States.

The team captured headliners including Sting, Nick Cave, Deep Purple, Lewis Capaldi, PinkPantheress, and Tyla, contributing over 1,300 freely licensed images to Wikimedia Commons. So far, 38 distinct images are in use across different language Wikipedias, in a total of 83 articles across 24 languages.

47 portraits, and counting: WikiPortraits at the 2026 BraveMaker Film Festival

Forty-seven actors, filmmakers, and other creatives stepped in front of a WikiPortraits photobooth at this year's BraveMaker Film Festival, and Wikipedia articles are already being updated with freely licensed portraits. At least two biographies have new images so far, including actor Loretta Devine and mental health advocate Kevin Hines, with a Wikimedia Commons category tracking all WikiPortraits from the festival as more make their way onto the projects.

The BraveMaker Film Festival ran July 8–12 in Redwood City, California, across venues including the historic Fox Theatre (which housed the red carpet — and the Center for Creativity. Featuring "thought-provoking brave stories that entertain, educate and create community experiences," the festival centers on justice, diversity, and inclusion, screening documentaries, narrative features, and shorts, each followed by a live panel discussion, with open captions at every screening.

The photobooth was run by WikiPortraits volunteers Jesse Kornblum and Abbey Ripstra. It was Kornblum's third year covering the festival, but his first as a Wikimedia contributor. While Jesse focused on the photography, Abbey handled Wiki advocacy. The Bay Area Wikipedian User Group (BAWUG) helped make it happen, spreading the word on its Discord, which is how Abbey came to volunteer — a good example of how local user groups can turn a community event into new contributors and new free-to-use high quality images.

WikiPortraits volunteer spotlight: Obinna Friday Matthew

This month's WikiPortraits volunteer spotlight introduces Obinna Friday Matthew (User:MediaMOF), a professional photographer based in Lagos, Nigeria, who has been contributing to Wikimedia Commons since 2020.

Obinna is co-founder of Wiki Photo Africa, an initiative that recruits and mentors photographers across the continent to donate freely licensed images to Commons, and he runs his own photography studio and training academy in Lagos.

Since joining WikiPortraits in 2025, he's brought his lens to major cultural moments, from the Ojude Oba Festival to a 10,000-strong Igbo community gathering in Lagos, alongside more physically demanding assignments like a wilderness survival trek.

In this Q&A, Obinna shares how he got started in photography, the challenges of shooting in the field, and where you can see more of his work.

New tool: Sightglass

We’ve launched a new tool called "Sightglass," which allows Wikimedia Commons users to query categories and pull comprehensive stats on how often photos have been loaded, primarily through Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

Compared to most prior metrics tools, Sightglass is able to run relatively quickly, on tens of thousands of files, and provide permalinks to results that can be shared with others. This has been very helpful for WikiPortraits photographers to figure out stats for events they’ve covered – so far in its first month, over 30 users have used it to analyze media counts on over 1.8 million files.

For example, we created a Sightglass run (see button, below) on all WikiPortraits uploads since January 2024 and discovered that:

• WikiPortraits media has been loaded almost 6 billion times (!)
• Our most popular photo subjects of all time include Pope Leo XIV, Angelina Jolie, and Lionel Messi.

Update: WikiPortraits at Wikimania 2026 in Paris

WikiPortraits convened a 9 a.m. information session at Wikimania 2026 in Paris, in collaboration with the Wikimédiens du Bénin User Group. Thanks to everyone who came to the early morning session. We were especially impressed to hear what the Macedonians were doing to get photos of people who had passed away. And we also hosted a WikiPortraits Studio with a beautiful background at Wiki Fringe.

And, finally, WikiPortraits delivered Sony camera equipment funded by a generous donor (we were supposed to hand off this donated gear during RightsCon in Zambia earlier this year... but that’s another, complicated story).

Get involved with WikiPortraits!

WikiPortraits welcomes new volunteers. If there's an event in your region you think should be covered by WikiPortraits, let us know, and we'll help get you started.

Here are some of the events in the WikiPortraits summer calendar:

• Edinburgh Festival Fringe (UK, August), with Wikimedia UK
• Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland, August), with Wikimedia Switzerland
• Toronto International Film Festival (Canada, September), with Wikimedia Canada

Donate to WikiPortraits

WikiPortraits exists because of people like you! Donate to help support our photographers' efforts to add more quality Creative Commons-licensed portrait photos to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.