I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1964. I came to Istanbul, Turkey at 1984 to study when the living environment changed in Iran.
What else do you do outside of Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons?
As of 2012 I am still at Istanbul. I am a medical doctor, practicing radiology in Istanbul.
Do you have a family?
Yes, I am married and and have a daughter (User:Leylosh) who is a young Wikimedian. :)
Are you a professional photographer or do you consider it to be more of a hobby?
It is a serious hobby for me.
How long have you been a photographer? How did you first get started?
I started when I was 12 with a Zeiss Ikon Camera my father bought for me and my brother. I was disappointed with the results. I bought several photography books and magazines, watched an educational photography series on TV and shot a lot of photos. My father complained when I shot a lot of flowers and other non-family type photos. But he was also encouraging me by showing my photos to relatives and enlarging some photos who he did like. I used several 35mm SLR’s like Zenith, Pentax, Canon-A1 and Nikon F-70 after my first camera. My first digital was KODAK DC280. A 0.5MP camera, followed by several others. Generally I prefer compact and SLR like fixed lens cameras which are lighter in weight and easier to carry. I try to carry a camera most of the time.
Are there particular types of photos that you specialize in, or especially enjoy taking (i.e. specific subject matter, landscapes, portraits, black-and-white, etc.)?
I take photos from my living environment, hobbies and travels. Most of the time I shoot the subject in natural light and available conditions. Rarely I setup a mini-studio. My interests change time to time. I do photomosaics, infrareds, HDR tone mapped images.
Why do you contribute to Commons?
I believe in Wikipedia and Wikimedia as good projects.
Creative commons license is a good choice for images. While the original copyright holder retain the rights, enough rights are granted to others to create derivative works and usage on online and printed media, both inside and outside Wikipedia projects.
IMO the way images are categorised in commons is the best on web. Categories are hierarchical. The order and names of categories can be changed if there is a need to do so. There is always a place for sub-categories if a category becomes too crowded. Categories and descriptions of images can be added, corrected and translated any time, by any user.
Opportunity is provided both for team work and individual work. Many people do not recognise how much work is needed to describe and categorise images. Commons allows this kind of work load balancing be done by several volunteers from many countries and in different times.
There are very good tools written in Java, Javascript and PHP easing the tasks for online editors.
Images serve a good purpose.
How long have you been contributing, and how did you first get started?
My user name on Turkish wikipedia is same as commons: Nevit ID number:371 First edit: 10 September 2004 Registration date: Unknown. Turkish wikipedia registration logs start from 2005 after my first edit and personally I do not remember when I registered. [1]
My earliest contribution to commons was at 2006. I started on commons by editing some categories and sorting files.
How has your experience on Commons been?
Commons has been a friendly environment as general. Deletion requests can be annoying and some discussions can get harsh. I believe in good faith an there are no lasting disappointments. I have more than 98000 edits slowly approaching to 100000.
File:Dcp7323-Edirne-Eski Camii Allah.jpgFile:08913-Perspective Run.jpg
Two of my photos did get book covers. File:Dcp7323-Edirne-Eski Camii Allah.jpg became the cover of Woman, Man, and God in Modern Islam by Theodore Friend. ISBN: 0802866735. Inside the book are many photos by well known photo agencies and recognised photographers. File:08913-Perspective Run.jpg also got a book cover. Children's Agency, Children's Welfare: A Dialogical Approach to Child ISBN: 1847424899 Searching google books for Nevit Dilmen shows that many of the images are also used in printed media. Being useful is rewarding for me.
Can you tell us a little more about your featured picture? Is there a story behind it? What were you doing when you came across the shot?
We had a family trip to London & Scotland at 2008. I shot the photo at London Zoo. The tent which the tropical butterflies was very hot. I was surprised by the number of butterflies and their size. They did not run away and were accustomed to humans.
Was there anything tricky/interesting about the composition of the shot or the situation you were in?
The tricky side was the human made objects and people seen on background. I tried to avoid them by controlling depth of field and choosing appropriate angle. I also tried to be fast and not to disturb other people who want to see the butterflies. By one or two trial and error I found the distance butterflies find acceptable.
What do you hope the picture will communicate to viewers?
All creatures other than humans have a serious habitat problem. We no longer see most of them in our environment. I was able to see the Atlas Moth in a zoo. I hope the image will help in awareness of their existence and their need for protection.
How do you feel about having your photo featured on Commons and in the Wikimedia projects?
Featured picture is one of several mechanisms of encouragement and quality evaluation on commons. I feel happy when one of my pictures get featured but I learned not to be dependent on FP as a source of motivation. The selection process can be disappointing most of the time and we have lost some good photographers being hurt by comments during the selection process. QI and VI can be disappointing too. We need a quality measurement process with positive feed back only. Rate this page on other Wikipedia projects is a good example. Users rate from * to ***** without any negative ratings.
I noticed that you contributed the "Gypsy Girl Mosaic" to Commons which was later used for the Wikimedia Foundation's Annual Report. Where did you go to take that photo? How did it feel to see your photo used on the Annual Report?
Gaziantep Museum excavated ancient Zeugma and I was on a cultural trip to Gaziantep with my friends. I tried to shot the mosaic without flash and take every effort to avoid shaking without tripod and having a good white balance of existing light. WMF was kind to send me a printed copy of Annual report. I was happy to get a printed version and showed it to my friends. I was surprised to see that there are still people who do not know WMF and how wikipedia projects work. I had to explain the equal opportunity nature of contribution to wikipedia and how work found useful get their way to different media.
File:Radiometer_9965_Nevit.gif
Your motion photography is really striking, such as the radiometer. How did you first start creating those images? What has the response been from other users?
I saw animated gif’s in 90’s. I created some combining the tools in DOS and Windows 3.1. I learned to keep the file size small and create looping images which is different from movies which have many frames of images. File:Radiometer 9965 Nevit.gif only 6 frames loop forever. I purchased radiometer as an educational toy for my daughter but at the end with the aid of Wikimedia commons and community it served as an educational tool to many more people. I was surprised when it was easily featured with few oppositions and my second surprise was when it got its way to final selection in POTY 2010. Few animations get good acceptance and this was one of them.
File:Happy new year 06463.jpgFile:London Zoo 00936.jpg
You make such great use of color. I'm specifically drawn to photos like "Happy New Year" and the fish in "London Zoo." Are these pictures touched up at all in photoshop or do you do everything in-camera?
File:Attacus_atlas_London_Zoo_01118-2.jpg
File:London_Zoo_00936.jpg (2008) is unedited and File:Happy new year 06463.jpg (2006) is edited. During my first upload I tried to correct all errors and upload a perfect version to commons. The I saw that there many better image editors other than me that can do a perfect editing job. The Gypsy Girl of Zeugma was edited by User:Durova who has an outstanding reputation for image editing. She has 412 featured credits: 318 at English Wikipedia and 94 at Wikimedia Commons. [2] having the unedited version available other users get more flexibility at editing the image. File:Attacus_atlas_London_Zoo_01118-2.jpg was edited by User:Hic_et_nunc at Commons:Graphic_Lab/Photography_workshop. This is a power of commons allowing collaboration and perfected derivations of original work.
