Eyes on the planet

The Contest

Join the contest is very easy. Candidates could enrol for the contest on website and upload their digital photo in one of the four categories, within the 30th September:

ENVIRONMENT - images must show that 'small things' can cause 'big' problems. We also want images of those who put forth a small effort in a positive way, the little hero that makes a change;
PEOPLE - life stories, solidarity gestures, people helping people for a better world;
CLIMATE - The negative impact of climate changes must lead the people to a consideration on their responsabilities and call our life style into question;
FOOD - The environmental conservation is also linked to preservation of the culture and of the territory from where the food items come from.

Manfrotto Group, Title sponsor for Eyes on the Planet, world leader in design and manufacture of photographic and video camera supports, is involved in corporate social responsability projects for long time.

"Eyes on the Planet is a project that is directly linked to a clear commitment of Manfrotto in environmental conservation" said Francesco Bernardi CEO of Manfrotto Group "a very important point of our corporate social responsibilities activities. We think the Men of tomorrow are able to gather the modification that our planet is exeperiencing nowadays. We also think that their insights could became an actual idea aim at new environment friendly behaviour, that respects the natural and human environment".

Thanks to the collaboration with MSN and Windows Live, the photographers involved in the contest can localize their photos directly on a virtual map, with Virtual Earth the Microsoft mapping platform. The internet users, surfing on the map of the world, will be able to see the pictures with information about the author.

Like a virtual marketing campaign, the photos can be sent to friends as virtual postcards, and they will call the attention of the users that do not have voted yet. The choice of the voter audience will form a parallel chart, different from the judging committee chart, a panel made by famous photographers and Media and Institutional personalities.

The Winners

Winners will have grants to join professional and amateur training course, stage and photo equipment, offered by the contest partner schools.
The price-giving will take place at the end of November during a soirée in the suggestive location of Palazzo Marino. There, the best photos will be displayed in a photo exhbition and will be sold during a charity auction. Revenues will be given to the projects that Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity Onlus and WWF are carrying out in Amazon, aim at sustain the local sustainable economy development.

Revenues from Eyes on the Planet will grant a protecting project for the Brazil nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa), located in the Brazilian, Peruvian and Bolivian forests. This tree, that cannot be planted elsewhere, gives job opportunity to entire communities that benefit from it more than from its fall. Nut tree cultivators become precious guardians of the Amazon rainforest.

Eyes on the Planet cooperates with important universities and photography schools - IED Milan, Istituto Italiano di Fotografia of Milano, Scuola di Fotografia of Naples and Società Umanitaria - and big press headings like Fotografia Reflex, Gente Viaggi, Qui Touring and Studenti Magazine. MSN & Windows Live are online media partner of the contest, information also on the dedicated MSN web site http://specials.it.msn.com/eyesontheplanet.

Among the partners of the contest there are Nikon, one of the world photo leader, the photo agency Corbis, Lonely Planet guides, translated in Italian by EDT, and T-Logic, digital audio and video enjoy technology leader.

Regulation on the website www.eyesontheplanet.org