Jesse Stoelwinder + Em Williams with their daughter
Jesse Stoelwinder + Em Williams with their daughter, Photo: Jarrad-Seng

On March 29, Celebrity Cruises launched a groundbreaking campaign to change the face of travel marketing and to address the under-representation of different groups in travel imagery, including LGBTQIA+, minority ethnic, people with disability and plus-size individuals.

To do this, the brand has collaborated with world-renowned photographer and LGBTQ+ advocate Annie Leibovitz and a group of diverse change-making photographers (among them Black and queer New York-based photographer Naima Green) to capture a stunning range of imagery, and create the world’s first diversity-focused open-source image library, to help other travel industry brands join the diversity and inclusion journey – free of charge.

Framed through the lenses of Leibovitz and the other photographers, the images feature a selection of diverse changemakers experiencing the wonder of travel. Among them include:

o   Abby Chava Stein, the first openly transgender woman raised in a Hasidic community and a direct descendant of Hasidic Judaism’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov

o   Lexie and Aisha, a model couple known as The Queer Nomads. Lexie is the founder of Queer Weddings UK, the first company in the UK that plans and coordinates weddings for LGBTQ+ couples, while Aisha is the founder of Moonlight Experiences, serving queer culture and nightlife. They both also serve leadership roles at UK Black Pride.

o   Najja Moon, an artist whose work explores the intersections of queer identity, the body and movement, black culture and familiar relations both personal and communal.

o   Jesse Stoelwinder + Em Williams, a married same-sex couple with a six-year-old daughter, whose wedding in Australia was a pivotal moment for them in legalizing their relationship and giving hope to their other queer friends

We sit down with Jesse and Em to talk about the shoot, travel and family.