Meet Your Neighbours is a photographic initiative that reveals the wildlife living amongst us in an extraordinary way. These creatures and plants are vital to people: they represent the first, and for some, the only contact with wild nature we have. Yet often they are overlooked, undervalued. Meet Your Neighbours dignifies these common species by giving them celebrity treatment. Each is photographed on location in a field studio. A brilliantly-lit white background removes the context, encouraging appreciation of the subject as an individual rather than a species. Their own form constitutes the composition. Seen this way, animals and plants we thought we knew reveal another side of themselves, encourage a second glance, perhaps even renewed interest. The initiative will engage photographers from around the world to celebrate these animals and ask people in their communities to “go meet your neighbours”. This is conservation photography at the grass roots level, asking people to care about their own natural heritage, where they live and showing them how extraordinary it is in a fresh way. If you are tempted to ask “Well, why do we need orchids or salamanders, woodlice or bullfrogs anyway?” you may as well ask, “why do we need children, friends, community?” We can live without all these things but our lives are much the poorer if we do so.
Niall Benvie, Project Co-Founder
The Concept Meet Your Neighbours is a global-scale photographic project, developed to encourage people of all ages to engage and appreciate the common species and natural environments within their own communities. Through stunning imagery and unique presentations, our viewers will gain a new understanding of just how special their own common ‘backyard’ species are and be encouraged to take the necessary steps to ensure their continued survival. It is our goal to nurture a compassion for even the most humble members of the natural world. Meet Your Neighbours is a proactive conservation effort aiming to remind the public that, with care and consideration, today’s common species won’t become the rarities of tomorrow.
The Look Each subject is shot in the wild against a pure white background and backlit to highlight its translucent qualities. The result of the field-studio approach is an exceptionally detailed, stunningly gorgeous series of portraits of common species like you’ve never seen them before! The images show maximum detail – itself often a source of fascination. Because all images are created onlocation, the need to harvest plants or transfer animals out of their natural environments is effectively eliminated.
The Campaign Images will be used in a variety of ways to support the Meet Your Neighbours project. These include: next generation e-Books with streaming video and sound, a children’s book series with enhanced digital companion guides, a high quality coffee table style book and an amazing ‘onwhite’ image catalog from partnering photographers from around the globe. Photos from the project will also be displayed in several traditional and non-traditional exhibits, including projected showings in public areas.
The Funding & Support Unlike many large-scale projects, which often require massive amounts of funding before an effort can get underway, Meet Your Neighbours has been uniquely structured to avoid this issue. Partnering photographers will shoot in their home regions, eliminating the need for long-distance travel and
With the exception of basic administrative costs, much of the
associated costs. In addition, they will work with regional
support that will be required for the project launch may be
sponsors to support their efforts, a fundamental point which
donated in-kind by sponsors. Examples of the types of in-kind
serves to not only remove the financial burden from a few
donations that we are pursuing include: web hosting, digital
large donors, but also ensures that regional organizations
projection equipment (on-loan), exhibition spaces, videography
have a vested interest in making sure each effort is a success.
and, of course, publicity and advertising opportunities.
The Rewards •
Meet Your Neighbours is a unique photographic
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effort supported by the some of the world’s best nature
broad selection of images of common species from around
photographers •
the world in amazing detail and style
Our message is hopeful and positive; common species are here, they are amazing and their continued survival is achievable
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Access to an amazing photographic archive featuring a
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A way to give back and make a difference in your local communities and others around the world through a positive environmental education and awareness program
Partnering photographers and sponsors will work together to reveal a very accessible side of nature that the general public can see, touch and interact with in their own communities
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Participants will also receive positive publicity and exposure through outlets such as magazine articles, websites, blogs, books, and multi-media; strengthening their own conservation message through an association with Meet Your Neighbours
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An opportunity to build relationships with like-minded businesses and organizations
For More Information Niall Benvie Senior Advisor & Co-Founder
Clay Bolt Project Coordinator & Co-Founder
PH: +44.1356.626.128 EM: niall@niallbenvie.com SM: 24 Park Road BRECHIN, Angus, DD9 7AP Scotland
PH: 1.864.905.8797 EM: clay@earthlink.net SM: 198 Jenkins Way Easley, South Carolina, 29640 USA
Green Veined White Butterfly & Cuckoo Flower (Pieris napi & Cardamine pratensis) Wet woods & Damp Meadows | Photographed in Norway
Ladder Snake (Rhinechis scalaris) Temperate Forests & Shrubland | Photographed in Spain
Rosyside Dace (Clinostomus funduloides) & Yellow-Fin Shiner (Notropis lutipinnis) Rivers & Streams | Photographed in the United States
Green Tiger Beetle (Cicindela campestris) Dry Woodlands & Open Areas | Photographed in Estonia
Pool Frog (Rana lessonae) Vegetated Wetlands | Photographed in Estonia
Yellow Ladies Slipper (Cypripedium calceolus) Open Woodlands | Photographed in France
Moorish Gecko (Tarentola mauritanica) Dry, Rocky Habitats | Photographed in Spain
Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) Wetlands | Photographed in the United States