Finding Biodiversity In Your Own Backyard

As a photographer, I occasionally check National Geographic's site for contest updates because to see one of my photos in their magazine would be a dream!! They didn't have any contests running the last time, so I poked around and clicked on an article about how their photographers use technology in the field, wherein I met Joel Sartore. Joel is from Nebraska and in 2006 he was looking for ways to stay close to home to help his wife, who was recovering from breast cancer treatments. He contacted the local children's zoo in Lincoln and had the idea to photograph the beasts not in their pseudo-natural environment but against stark black or white backdrops, helping to keep all things "equal" in terms of proportion and dimension from ladybugs to lions. That day's worked evolved into a goal to catalog every species in American zoos, recognizing that we have the best zoos in the world and someday not all of those animals will even exist. The Biodiversity Project was born. Sounds like... ho hum, probably been done before. Probably not. Check this out! 

And this one.

Then there was this one. 

The animals fly, hop, slither, and slink into Joel's mobile photo studio designed just for zoo animals. They have covered about one-third or 1,800 of America's zoo animal population in the past five years and intend to get them all. Images from the Biodiversity Project are available for purchase and help support the team's work. You can get an 8x10 for only 40 bucks. Scientists approximate that over 100 species become extinct every day! Imagine how our biodiversity is evolving without us even knowing it.