In 2011, Vienna-based portrait photographer Christian Anderl first heard about The Movember Foundation, an organization that raises awareness for men’s health, and he knew he wanted to get involved. One year later, the cause became much more personal for Christian when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. With a lot of time to think and a new perspective on reality, Christian’s personal Movember project was born. He rounded up celebrities and took portraits for a calendar, in hopes of raising awareness in Austria, a country that, for the most part, hadn’t heard of Movember before Christian’s project.
It has been very successful, with calendars launching in 2012 and 2013, and the portraits appearing in newspapers, magazines, and on TV all over the country.
Below, Christian talks about his personal experience, as well as the details of his Movember project.
How did you and Sarah [Christian’s wife] get involved in Movember? How long ago?
We got involved because of my own cancer diagnoses in 2012. I had heard about “Movember“ for the first time one year before that, and already decided to participate, as I thought it was a great idea to bring some awareness to men’s health in general, and especially to prostate / testicular cancer and depression. Of course I didn’t think it would get that close to me, but in 2012 when I was in hospital with my testicular cancer, Sarah and I decided to get some Austrian celebrities with moustaches on a calendar. Austria didn’t know what “Movember” was in 2012 and we wanted to change this. The portraits were in almost every newspaper, magazine, TV and radio show we had in Austria.
Can you tell me about your experience with cancer? How did it affect your career?
My experience with cancer is quite easy to explain — It definitely sucks to sit in front of a doctor who’s telling you “glad you’re here, if you weren’t here now, you would have about a year left to live.“ On the other hand, if you survive like I did, it gives you some new perspectives and maybe even some new chances. I’ve always seen this cancer like a wave. You can fight it, but it will win, no matter how hard you fight. Or you can grab your board, give all you can and try to ride the wave. If you succeed in doing so, you will have the best time you can imagine. I think it affected my career in two ways. The first way was that I recognized what I already knew in theory: self-employment is great, as long as you are healthy. As soon as you’re not healthy, you’re in deep, deep trouble. I didn’t have a single job for about three months. And I knew if I’m put into that situation again, or if it gets worse, I will have to quit my flat and I will be in trouble financially. Not a good feeling if you’re trying to get better! Because of this bad feeling, I decided to give my career some minor changes. I didn’t want to go on changing time for money. I had to find a way to produce something, to set up a business that will pay my rent, even if I ever get that ill again. But I didn’t want to do any business just for the money. I wanted to do what I love. So what does a photographer do in such a situation?
My solution was to build my own online photography course. It has been a big success so far. After some months of hard work, we now have 700 participants, growing about 100-120 every month.
To be honest, my life and career are better than they ever were before.
Why did you decide to do portraits?
I love portraits. You can capture so much in a face if you take the time. I simply love them. For Movember it was quite clear: I wanted to show Austrian celebrities that everyone knows, but no one has ever seen with a moustache before. I wanted to get is as much attention as possible for Movember, and it worked.
How does the project raise money/how much money have you raised so far?
The Movember website is a platform where you can register, build your own team and start raising money. It’s all about the users’ ideas. You can do whatever you like. A product with a moustache, a Movember calendar, a party … it’s up to you. We did calendars in 2012 and 2013 and raised about 8.000 EUR. This year we decided to quit the celebrity calendar (Austria is a small country, we’re running out of celebs quite fast!) but we are still shooting some portraits and are planning to make a book—maybe next year.
Can you tell me some of the Austrian celebrities that have been featured?
One of the most famous is soccer legend Herbert Prohaska. If you’re old enough and know international soccer, you definitely heard of him. We also got Cornelius Obonya, a great actor who did the world famous “Jedermann” (Everyman) in 2012, some TV presenters (Nicola Loewenstein, Martina Rupp), news anchors (Roman Rafreider), musicians (Excuse Me Moses) and comedians (Andrea Händler, Eva Billisich). All in all, I think we covered every part of it!
What are your future plans for the project?
I think we will make it a book some day, when we feel we got enough portraits. At the moment, we’re not focusing on celebrities. We wanted to give Movember a lot of attention, but now that everyone knows it here in Austria, we are focusing on beautiful, huge moustaches to create a book full of celebrities and extraordinary “mo’s.” That’s it. We hope to be inspire someone every year, because then every year there is someone new who will bring attention to Movember, and that’s all we really wanted.