This year, Sony Malaysia brought the 4 days 3 nights nature camp to the beautiful island of Langkawi, where about 100 participants including students, teachers, professional photographers, members from Malaysian Nature Society and Sony Malaysia staffs, converged to appreciate Mother Nature and learn about the ecological system of Langkawi through photography.

Sony Malaysia has been organising the annual Sony Nature Photography Camp with the theme “Living with Nature” since 2005, together with partners from Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) and CLICK! magazine, and with the help of the Ministry of Education Malaysia. The main objective of this nature camp is to raise awareness and educate students on environmental conservation. The camp also aims to cultivate students’ interest towards nature and provide them a chance to discover and appreciate the beauty of flora and fauna through fun and educational activities to drive home the key message of nature conservation.

“Besides creating awareness on nature conservation, we also want to encourage and promote participation of Sony employees as volunteers in line with Sony’s global volunteer programme and environmental month exercise,” said Ms. Connie Goh, Public Relations Executive from Sony Malaysia. “This camp is for school students to learn about the significance of protecting our nature, but it is also hope that through the lens of our young generation, we are able to inspire and influence the general public to contribute their parts in environmental conservation”.

Every year, Sony Malaysia will introduce a new camp site for participants to learn about the ecology system of that particular location and subsequently capture the nature at its true form with their cameras. Langkawi was chosen as the venue to host the Sony Nature Photography Camp 2008 because of its unique ecology.

The camp programme includes ecology and environmental talk by MNS; basic photography coaching from CLICK!, and field activities that put students into the actual environment to shoot and capture the vast natural elements around them. At the end of the camp, students had to present their works to the panel of judges in an attempt to win the final prizes.

The many ‘firsts’ at Sony Nature Photography Camp 2008
This year’s participants at the Sony Nature Photography Camp were selected through an initial stage of nature photography contest held earlier in August. Winners of the contest were then given the opportunity to join this incentive camp at Langkawi.

This is also the first year that schools from East Malaysia were involved in the nature camp. The East Malaysian teams who qualified themselves for this incentive Langkawi camp came from Kuching and Sandakan respectively. Being the first timer at the camp, both teams competed aggressively throughout the camp in a bit to capture and present the best facets of Mother Nature to the panel of judges from Sony Malaysia, MNS, CLICK! and also Ministry of Education. At the end, the Kuching team rose to the challenge and took home the 1st prize. 2nd prize and 3rd prize were awarded to schools from Bukit Sentosa and USJ12 respectively.

Each team comprised of one teacher and three students. The 1st prize winner walked home with a total of RM450 worth of cash voucher for the represented school and RM700 worth of cash voucher for each student in the team. 2nd prize winner received cash vouchers of RM350 for the school and RM500 for each student, while 3rd prize winner took home RM250 cash vouchers for school and students.

No one at the camp went home empty handed. Teams who did not win also received a consolation prize for their great sportsmanship and enthusiasm towards nature photography throughout the camp. Teachers on the other hand, received a special Batik gift from Sony Malaysia as a token of appreciation for their dedication towards the education and future of the young generation.

More than just a nature photography camp
The Sony Nature Photography Camp is more than just a nature photography camp. This year, a few value added elements like recycling and beach cleaning exercise were included into the camp’s programme. As part of Sony’s rigorous effort to promote environmental conservation, the simple yet effective recycling exercise was implemented by writing all participants’ names on the their lunch boxes and mineral water bottles using permanent marker pen so that the same containers were being kept and reused for the next lunch. In addition to that, students along with their teachers and facilitators picked up rubbish along the beach during field activities.

Sony Malaysia and its partners, together with the Ministry of Education Malaysia will continue to organise and improve the Sony Nature Photography Project with even more exciting and educational programmes in the coming years as part of the company’s ongoing commitment towards being a socially responsible corporate citizen.