Writer – Photographer – Educator
...the story behind my obsession with (photographing) the VFT carnivore plant Here's an excerpt from my book, JOURNEYS THROUGH DARKNESS: A BIOGRAPHY of award-winning, legally blind photographer Kurt Weston: In 1993, Kurt Weston founded SWAN--Surviving With AIDS Network--a grassroots group that offered those living with HIV a safe place to be, socialize, and share their [...]
What I've learned about photography and life from award-winning photographer Kurt Weston In 2005, I came across an award-winning photograph posted online. It was called "The Last Light" and featured a man with a drawn face and ghostly eyes. He was sitting in a chair with his back at a tall window. He appeared as [...]
Photographing and interviewing ACT-UP activists March is not only Women's History Month, but it also marks the anniversary (the 34th this year) of ACT UP--the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power. Over the past twenty years, I've had the opportunity to meet, interview and photograph many LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activists, many of them ACT UP activists. [...]
Interviewing photographers
A #tbt interview with award-winning, legally blind photographer Kurt Weston, originally published in A&U Magazine--America's AIDS Magazine Some fifteen years ago, I came across a contest looking for works by visual artists and writers. The contest was called Unfinished Works and featured a black-and-white photograph--The Last Light, by Kurt Weston. Although I didn't know it [...]
The story of a black-and-white Lensbaby photograph on World AIDS Day 2020 Angels in America has been a source of inspiration for many artists, in particular those capturing the AIDS pandemic of the eighties. The Bethesda angel is a symbolic figure at the center of Tony Kushner’s play, and, itself, a source of inspiration. Known [...]
Who's ready for Halloween this Covid-19 year? Not me, but then again, I've never been a fan of this particular holiday, not really. I've photographed and been part of Halloween-themed shows in NYC. Also, I used to photograph vampires and even had some images featured in a local show, in 2014; years ago I even [...]
How I made that shot and the story behind my "No Surrender" image Those of you reading this blog might recall some of my previous posts mentioning a new series of hand portraits and self-portraits, which is still very much a work in progress. Here's the story behind one of the images in this series--No [...]
Drawing parallels between AIDS and Covid-19 pandemics (or how HIV and AIDS has inspired creative work capturing Coronavirus and Covid-19) Several people, on different occasions, have asked me to talk about similarities and differences between the pandemic of the eighties (or the eighties' "plague," how Larry Kramer called it) and the current, Coronavirus pandemic. While [...]
On using creative work to capture pandemics such as HIV and AIDS, and the Coronavirus pandemic Oftentimes in life we have to face extreme situations--man- or nature-made--that, in turn, force us to look at life through a new lens, and compel us to capture the experience for ourselves and for those who come after us. [...]
Alina Oswald 