Posted by Marc Ziccardi on Fri, Jul 17, 2009 @ 01:12 PM
Our partnership with the National Geographic Society has opened our eyes to a number of amazing projects that they have spearheaded and National Geographic's Photo Camp ranks highly among those. Photo Camp is a series of photography workshops for youth from underserved communities that operates in the United States and abroad. Photo Camp is sponsored by the National Geographic Education Foundation (through funding from the Ferguson-Judge Fund), Special Projects, and Mission Programs, in partnership with VisionWorkshops, of Annapolis, MD.
PNY is proud to support this initiative by providing memory cards for the cameras utilized during the camps, and open the world of photography to groups of children who may not have had any previous experience in digital photography. With over 40 domestic and international camps since 2003, Photo Camp has worked with young people in such locations as Uganda, Mexico, India, Miami, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Pine Ridge Native American Reservation in South Dakota, Hawaii, Houston, and Washington D.C. Not only do the participants get to show their community from their perspective behind the lens, they are led by a host of world renowned National Geographic Photographers. These luminaries of the photography world have included such names as: Sam Abell, Annie Griffiths-Belt, Reza, Chris Rainier, David Burnett & Ed Kashi. This is truly a life changing program and we encourage you to explore more with the links below.
If you want to see what the Photo Camps are all about please take a look at a recent video, produced by VisionWorkshops Jim Webb.
The next Photo Camp takes place July 17-22 in the Florida Keys. To learn more about Photo Camp and explore photo galleries from previous camps, click here: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photocamp
To make an online donation and help keep the kids behind the cameras, please click here. https://donate.nationalgeographic.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=776
Teens from the 2008 Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Photo Camp -
Posted by Marc Ziccardi on Thu, May 28, 2009 @ 12:53 PM
For nearly 20 years now, I've traveled the world for National Geographic Magazine. I've photographed everywhere from the jungles of Bolivia to the wolves of Yellowstone.
Of all the things I've seen, however, none has gotten my attention like the plight of endangered species.
As humans expand out, wildlife has less room. This has been a problem for hundreds of years, but with climate change, things have gotten a whole lot worse lately.
We all know about global ice melting, and how it affects animals like the polar bear and the walrus, creatures that are totally dependent on sea ice to survive.
But did you know about the frogs?
Amphibians are in serious trouble right this minute. Though they've been around for millions of years, they take in toxins through their skin, making them very susceptible to pollution. They're also water-dependent, meaning they can't survive if we drain the wetlands or muddy up the streams where they go to breed.
On top of all this, there's a new threat in town; a killer fungus. It's call chytrid, and it's spreading around the world at alarming rates. Nobody knows how it spreads exactly, or whether climate change encourages it. What we do know, however, is that it's often totally fatal to many species of frog, toad, newt or salamander that it comes across.
I've spent the past couple of years documenting not only the decline of amphibians, from the cloud forests of Ecuador to the High Sierras of California, but I've also been doing studio-style portraits of as many different amphibian species as I can in order to show readers the diversity and beauty of these amazing animals.
I hope you agree that they're all worth saving.
Joel Sartore
Lincoln, NE
www.joelsartore.com
The learn about fight against chytrid, check out the Vanishing Gems story in the April issue of National Geographic Magazine. (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/amphibian/species-photography
