Panasonic, the flagship brand of Matsushita Electric Industrial, has renewed a three-year sponsorship contract of Our Place-World Heritage, a photo project that aims to build a photo library of the world's historic sites. The Osaka-based company, which recorded revenues of over $77 billion last year, is the project's principal financial sponsor.
New Zealand professional photographer Geoff Steven, in partnership with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's World Heritage Centre, conceived and initiated Our Place in 2006. Since then, an international network of professional photographers has been working on capturing 830 UNESCO-identified World Heritage sites, spanning from ancient Egyptian pyramids to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The goal of the project is to document the most important cultural and natural locations and to support the preservation of those most fragile.
Participating photographers include a number of well-known names, such as Pall Stefansson, a multiple winner of Iceland's Photographer of the Year Award, American wilderness shooter and author of 17 books David Muench and photojournalist Rogerio Reis, whose politically focused work has earned him Brazil's National Prize for Documentary Photography.
The Our Place photographic archive currently includes over 1800 images of more than 160 sites in 60 countries. The image library will be critical to raising the funds needed for preservation and restoration. Royalties will be generated by a range of products, including television programs, books and other print publications of the photo collection. Given the niche theme, size and quality of the collection, individual image-licensing is a distinct possibility.
The latest six-day shoot took place in Kyoto between March 24 and 29, with 15 Our Place photographers using LUMIX cameras. A photo gallery will be displayed in Panasonic's Osaka offices late April through May and in Tokyo from early June to July. Steven, who remains the director of Our Place, says that Panasonic's support for the project is a model example of corporate social responsibility.
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee is scheduled to meet in Quebec City, Canada, in July. UNESCO has spearheaded preservation activities since 1972, when it adopted the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage.