Unsplash Awards: A little sit down with Founder Mikael Cho

09.07.17

Exactly one week ago, we have introduced the Unsplash Awards on Abduzeedo. A celebration made just for you, to recognize the open photography movement. Have you started submitting your photos yet? There is still plenty of time, please do check out Awards.Unsplash.com In the meantime, we would like to take the opportunity also to share a little interview/sit down we had with the founder of Unsplash - Mikael Cho. Get his insights on what motivates him from the Unsplash community.

Doing a yearly ‘awards’ type event was something we always wanted to do. But it was a challenge to do it in the right way.

Mikael Cho - Image via Unsplash

Tell us about what is the Unsplash Awards?

The Unsplash Awards is a celebration of the people powering the open source photography movement. On Unsplash, millions of people every month are inspired by photography they can openly use to create. We felt it was important to create a moment that acknowledges the contributors who’ve made this possible by generously gifting their photography. We’ve created 10 photography categories where we’ll feature the photos from Unsplash contributors: Aerial, Animals & Wildlife, Astrophotography, Food & Drink, Interiors & Architecture, Nature & Landscapes, People & Portraits, Sports, Street Photography and Unsplash community. For each category, we’re inviting a guest curator to help select the photos to feature. Guest curators include Airbnb, Ultralinx, Squarespace, Imgix, Kodak, DJI, and Lonely Planet.

How did you (and team) come up with the Unsplash Awards?

Without our community, Unsplash would be nothing. Doing a yearly ‘awards’ type event was something we always wanted to do. But it was a challenge to do it in the right way. Unsplash originally started as a side project inside of our company Crew. So we didn’t have the team to put together an ‘awards’ event the way we wanted. Earlier this year though, we spun Unsplash out into its own company. This allowed us to expand our team and execute on Unsplash Awards the way we wanted to.

Image by Nakita Cheung

What is going to be the whole process of the Unsplash Awards?

Sept. 1 - Sept. 30 - Photo submissions open at awards.unsplash.com Oct. 1 - Oct. 10 - Guest judges make selections Oct 15 - Announcement of featured photos

How did you (and team) come up with the categories of the Unsplash Awards? Is it relevant to what is being shared on the platform?

The Unsplash Awards photography categories were definitely inspired by the photos we see everyday on Unsplash. There's over 250,000 photos on Unsplash now and most fit into these 10 categories.

Image by chuttersnap

The Unsplash Awards is a celebration of the people powering the open source photography movement. On Unsplash, millions of people every month are inspired by photography they can openly use to create. We felt it was important to create a moment that acknowledges the contributors who’ve made this possible by generously gifting their photography.