Illuminating Living With HIV

Last September a collection of 120 online photographs gave a face to hundreds of thousands of people in North America who live with HIV every day. This portrait of people affected by HIV—gay and straight, negative and positive, friends, family and co-workers—confirmed what photographer August Sander once said, “In photography, there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.”

For the third year Positively Aware is hosting its “A Day with HIV” photography public awareness program by asking people around the world on one single day, Friday, September 21, to shed light on the realities of living with HIV. On this day, people will grab a digital camera and “take a shot” to chronicle a time in their day that tells their story of living with HIV.

Over the past two years, the power of these images—of people at work, families at play, friends and lovers caring for one another—demonstrates a collective resolve to say “this is who we are and this is how we cope—and live.”

People were very generous in sharing a moment in their “day with HIV”: Velietta Dickens Rogers at her easel painting; A “pos” and “neg” couple kissing one another; Amber holding a day’s regiment of HIV drugs in her hand; Dan showing off his “Dab the AIDS bear;” Two-year old Philip, infected with HIV at birth, smiling into the camera; and the Rev. Andreana Ingram, a Lutheran minister, displaying her “HIV is Alive and Well” t-shirt. Taken together these images create a remarkable patchwork of stories about HIV.

In a few weeks, on Friday, Sept. 21, you can share a moment in your daily life through a photograph that tells your story.  You can submit that image to the “A Day with HIV” photo essay campaign at www.adaywithhiv.com. Many of these photographs will be featured on a special “A Day With HIV” web site with selected images featured in the Nov.-Dev. issue of Positively Aware.

"Against a backdrop of the promise of ending AIDS, the lives of people infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS go largely unnoticed. Nowhere is that more true than among Black Americans struggling with the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” President and CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, Phill Wilson said. "A day with HIV shines a light on our lives.  AIDS will never be over unless or until people living with HIV can live openly and proudly and there is an environment that allows us to do so. A day with HIV" is an attempt to move us down that road."

The hundreds of photographs we collect and share will tell the untold stories of people living with HIV and give meaning to all our lives. Join us on Sept. 21 and take your best shot.