Panasonic is backing ?OUR PLACE – The World?s Heritage?, a project that will create the largest ever photographic collection of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The photographs will be published under the OUR PLACE brand in an initial series of 10 books that will be released over the next five years.

A team of international photographers will cover the sites from their physical and geographical aspects, as well as documenting the human presence and interaction that helps make them important to mankind. An interactive website will be launched next year when enough images are available. As well as a selection of site photographs www.ourplaceworldheritage.com will feature background information relevant to the sites? history and values.

The Panasonic supported project will eventually have an international team of 20 photographers, who will be photographing a large number of the 830 World Heritage Sites in 138 countries around the globe. The team will exclusively use the Panasonic Lumix range of digital cameras, including the recently launched DMC-L1 SLR.

Mr.Yoshida, managing director of Digital Still Camera Business Unit in Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd, believes that this is an important opportunity for the company: “Panasonic is keen to contribute to photographic culture, and helping promote and protect the important UNESCO World Heritage sites through the Our Place Project makes this a project with which Panasonic is proud to be involved. Through this project, we would like to change peoples’ minds, both about the value of World Heritage, and about Panasonic?s strong commitment to photographic culture. Our vision for LUMIX is to create a new photo culture in the digital era.?