I met Yigal through a mutual friend. I was looking to meet and photograph African Refugees who escaped to Israel. Shtayim responded almost immediately; "Let me connect you to so and so..." and then "Why rent a photography studio? You can use mine!", and than finally "Don't worry about it. Just come down and it'll be fine". So I did.
Yigal is an accomplished painter living in Tel Aviv. Gerhardt Richter fans would also fall for Shtayim's incredible portraits (Adam Abdullah's is palpable), juxtaposed city-scapes ("the white city" of Tel Aviv), and more recently hyper realistic abstracts depicting ship wrecks destroyed by the infamous Nazi U-Boats on their way to Europe from North America. He's strictly working in Black and White but his creations are some of the most colourful paintings I've seen.
Shtayim is a force of nature. With over 10k followers on Facebook, he was one of the founders in a organization helping African Refugees in Israel. His physical presence is powerful and a delight for portraiture making. But most importantly, on my scale anyway, he's a Mench!