I have been working pro bono as The Pixel Project’s principal photographer since Regina Yau, the founder of The Pixel Project, pitched the idea of the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign to me.
Violence against women is a global problem that needs the most serious and urgent attention. We hear so many reports of women, the child bearers, the carers, the nurturers, the homemakers, the workers, being treated disdainfully, with hostility, indeed violently and abusively.
It would be so wonderful were that picture to shift.
We can either sit by and do nothing, or we can use the gifts and tools that are accessible to us to make a difference.
It is the least we can do.
Since joining The Pixel Project, I have done three inspiring Celebrity Male Role Model shoots for The Pixel Project (with a fourth and final shoot to come). The shoots have taken place in varying locations – a modern New York office block looking out at the New York skyline; in the calm, warm Florida waters under a vivid sunset and in a London transit hotel close to Heathrow where planes took off overhead.
The first notable point is that these prominent men came forward to speak out about their abhorrence at the concept of (and indeed as witness to) unnecessary violence towards women. All three role models are busy and powerful men in the world, yet they gave their time, and energies wholeheartedly.
The second notable point is that volunteers offered their services as assistants, as reflector holders, as drivers, as sound recorders, and as location scouts. These shoots could not have happened without their help and to them we owe our gratitude. Without their cooperation and support this project could not have happened.
So do get involved and join the “Portraits for Pixels” campaign – donate your time and your services to support both The Pixel Project and the Celebrity Male Role Model Pixel Reveal campaign.
It’s time to stop violence against women. Together.
The Pixel Project Show – Ep. 6 – Jillian Edelstein from The Pixel Project on Vimeo.
______________________________
About Jillian Edelstein
London based photographer Jillian Edelstein was born and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. She began working as a press photographer in Johannesburg on the Rand Daily Mail and the Star. In 1985 she emigrated to London to study at the London College of Printing. Her portraits have appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vogue and Interview. She has worked on campaigns for Comic Relief, The Dogs Trust, The National Theatre, The National Portrait Gallery, Abbot Mead Vickers BBDO, EMI, UNICEF, and The Royal Shakespeare Company.
She has received several awards including the Kodak UK Young Photographer of the Year in 1986, Photographers Gallery Portrait Photographer of the Year Award 1990, the Visa d’Or at the International Festival of Photojournalism in Perpignan in 1997, the European Final Art Polaroid Award in 1999, the John Kobal Book Award 2003.
Between 1996 and 2002 she returned to South Africa often to document the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Her award-winning book Truth and Lies, shot in large format was published by Granta in 2002. Her photographs have been exhibited internationally at venues including the National Portrait Gallery, The Photographers Gallery, The Royal Academy New Art Space, the Tom Blau Gallery in London, the Recontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France and the Bensusan Museum, Johannesburg. She has just completed her second book Call of the Ancestors about the Sangoma, the traditional healers who live, heal and train in the mountains on the Lesotho/South African border.
You can keep up with Jillian at http://www.jillianedelstein.co.uk/.