Solar Portraits

We are proud to announce our latest collaboration with Rubén Salgado Escudero, creator of the Solar Portraits project and contributor to National Geographic Magazine.

In 2014, Rubén launched the Solar Portraits project with two main objectives in mind:
• To improve everyday life for remote communities who do not have access to electricity.
• To promote renewable energy.

Today, he continues to travel far and wide to meet with those people still completely cut off from modern society, living in isolation, and far from any access to electricity. In most cases they live in the world’s poorest countries.
In partnership with local NGOs, Rubén brings small solar power systems to these remote locations to provide free access to light and to improve the daily lives of the people he meets. These small devices provide 12 hours of light, equal to an entire night.

Through photography, Rubén immortalizes the moment when these people enjoy artificial light for the very first time, and how this helps them in their private lives, when they work, and even during their leisure time.

The result is beautiful and captivating. The only source of light for the photos comes from the small solar devices.

The goal of Solar Portraits is to provide assistance as well as to promote solar power and renewable energy, especially in the poor countries Rubén visits where the power grid is underdeveloped.

More than one billion people across the world still live without access to electricity. In these areas, most rural labor is still not mechanized, and candles remain the only source of light available when the sun sets.

For these countries, being “electricity underdeveloped” could actually represent an opportunity to deploy renewable sources of energy from the outset. This would completely skip the need to use fossil fuels for power (petroleum, coal, and natural gas), which today are the primary source of the greenhouse gases affecting our planet’s climate.

Rubén truly believes in this idea, and also leads education projects to build greater awareness about using renewable energy.
You can visit his website for more information: here

The next step in our work with Rubén is to send our employees on a Solar Portraits project!
Here at Picture is that we have set up a social program that allows anyone on our team to embark on a humanitarian mission. Last year, Laura and Estelle spent time in Nepal to help renovate schools in rural areas.
This year, 2 other employees are off to the Philippines. More to come very soon!