Photographer Kurt Weston Works Through AIDS-Related Visual Loss to Capture a Portrait of the Pandemic
Photographer Kurt Weston sees his AIDS as a battle. And he needs to be a warrior willing to fight the virus that is destroying him.
"I never really wanted to just give up, even when I had the KS lesions. I think part of it was the fear of dying, but I didn't just wait for it to happen," he says, explaining his source of positive a 
ttitude during the course of our phone interview.
Diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1991, the award-winning visual artist considers protease inhibitors a miracle that literary saved his life. But, as he was restoring his health, he was also becoming legally blind, diagnosed with CMV retinitis in 1994.
"I was devastated because here I had spent my life working as a photographer and as a visual artist and I was no longer capable of doing this... or so I thought, because I couldn't see anything in focus. I don't see anybody's face," he says. "I see... like, if you look at the palm of your hand. That's what I see of a person's face. So, I didn't think I could ever photograph again."
Fortunately, it turned out he could. And his first challenge was finishing the 1999 calendar for the Asian/Pacific Crossroads.
Many challenges later, after attending low vision technology studies at the California Braille Institute and experimenting with his new special equipment, Weston realized that he could, indeed, photograph. With the help of organizations like the Foundation for Junior Blinds (now known as Junior Blind of America) and California Department of Rehabilitation, he purchased the special equipment-handheld telescope, special magnification glasses, and magnification and reading software programs like Zoomtext-necessary for him to continue his work.
"It was scary. A lot of times, I would take a leap of faith and do a lot of experimentation," he recalls this learning process.
Kurt Weston is a firm believer that a person can work through a situation, no matter how extremely challenging and helpless it may seem, and use the experience to help others who find themselves in similar circumstances. This philosophy has helped him work off the dilemmas in his own life while giving his life a deeper sense of meaning.
"I never really wanted to just give up, even when I had the KS lesions. I think part of it was the fear of dying, but I didn't just wait for it to happen," he says, explaining his source of positive a
Diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1991, the award-winning visual artist considers protease inhibitors a miracle that literary saved his life. But, as he was restoring his health, he was also becoming legally blind, diagnosed with CMV retinitis in 1994.
"I was devastated because here I had spent my life working as a photographer and as a visual artist and I was no longer capable of doing this... or so I thought, because I couldn't see anything in focus. I don't see anybody's face," he says. "I see... like, if you look at the palm of your hand. That's what I see of a person's face. So, I didn't think I could ever photograph again."
Fortunately, it turned out he could. And his first challenge was finishing the 1999 calendar for the Asian/Pacific Crossroads.
Many challenges later, after attending low vision technology studies at the California Braille Institute and experimenting with his new special equipment, Weston realized that he could, indeed, photograph. With the help of organizations like the Foundation for Junior Blinds (now known as Junior Blind of America) and California Department of Rehabilitation, he purchased the special equipment-handheld telescope, special magnification glasses, and magnification and reading software programs like Zoomtext-necessary for him to continue his work.
"It was scary. A lot of times, I would take a leap of faith and do a lot of experimentation," he recalls this learning process.
Kurt Weston is a firm believer that a person can work through a situation, no matter how extremely challenging and helpless it may seem, and use the experience to help others who find themselves in similar circumstances. This philosophy has helped him work off the dilemmas in his own life while giving his life a deeper sense of meaning.