WikiPortraits volunteer spotlight: Birgit Fostervold

Based in Norway, Birgit Fostervold works as a graphic designer in a consultancy alongside architects, engineers, and planners. In that role, Birgit sometimes takes on occasional photography assignments, particularly for landscape architects, covering internal events and shooting portraits of colleagues.

Q: Tell us about yourself!

My name is Birgit Fostervold (aka Lensbirdie), and I am based in Arendal, on the south coast of Norway.

Since 2013, I have been an active volunteer festival photographer at a range of music festivals and similar events. I value the dual reward it offers: the musical experiences themselves, and the satisfaction of seeing how much both organisers and musicians appreciate the photographs.

A few fun facts:

• In 2024, I photographed 231 concerts featuring 61 different artists and bands, many of them festival gigs.
• I use proper camera equipment, but I also maintain a separate Flickr account dedicated solely to mobile photography, where I currently have more than 50,000 images — and no, they are not just pictures of my most recent meals.
• For nearly three years, I also ran a non-commercial photographic gallery in my spare time, outside of regular working hours.

How did you get started with photography?

I have always been interested in photography. I have a strongly visual way of remembering and engaging with the world, and photography is an important tool in that respect.

In my early teens, I carried a Kodak Instamatic with me everywhere. After upper secondary school, I spent a year at a folk high school where darkroom work was one of my areas of specialisation. Following a period when other commitments took up most of my time, my interest in photography grew significantly after I became a mother.

Since 2010, I have been closely involved in the camera club community. I serve on the boards of both the Norwegian and Nordic federations of camera clubs, as well as the largest nature photography festival in the Nordic countries.

The gallery I operated for three years functioned as an informal meeting place with activities a couple of times each week, and provided a platform for amateur photographers to exhibit their work.

How did you become involved with Wikipedia?

I registered on Wikipedia in 2015 to upload a photograph of a Norwegian musician I had just photographed at a concert — his existing profile image dated back to 1982. In the years that followed, I uploaded the occasional image, but it was not until 2024 that my involvement really gained momentum.

A concert photographer affiliated with Wikimedia Norge introduced me to a list he had compiled of Norwegian musician articles that either lacked an image or featured an outdated one, and invited me to contribute. I began uploading more actively and came across a competition aimed at adding citations to unsourced Wikipedia articles. Very often, I took it upon myself to expand those articles with additional information as well.

Over time, I stepped away from the competition and now focus on contributing content related to subjects that interest me personally — typically music, most often within the metal genre.

My contributions are primarily concentrated on the Norwegian-language Wikipedia, though in recent years I have also ventured into the English-language version. This typically happens when I have photographed a band or artist and discover that their Wikipedia article is incomplete, or that no article exists at all.

What are some WikiPortraits highlights?

WikiPortraits is an excellent initiative. As a regular Wikipedia user, I had long been aware of the lack of high-quality images due to licensing constraints, and my background in voluntary work — shaped in part by the Norwegian concept of "dugnad" — made it a natural fit. For me personally,

WikiPortraits represents a valuable opportunity to share my images on an additional platform, and through grants from WikiPortraits and Wikimedia Norge, I have been able to cover events that would otherwise have been financially out of reach.

My association with WikiPortraits has also enabled me to apply for press accreditation at events where I am not volunteering as a festival photographer. This proved particularly valuable during last year's coverage of Norway's largest rock festival, where my images have since garnered more than 4.5 million views on Commons — quite remarkable for someone with around 500 Instagram followers.

I also take considerable personal satisfaction in being able to tell a small, niche festival focused on improvisational and contemporary music that 70% of the participating musicians received new portrait images on Wikipedia, with the event credited in the image titles and captions.

Where can people see your photographs?

You can find my work at lensbirdie.com or by searching for lensbirdie on Instagram. 🙂