Focus on Living: Portraits of Americans with HIV and AIDS

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Photographs and interviews by Roslyn Banish; introduction by Paul M Volberding, MD

Review by Richard Wolitz, MD

Winter 2005 - Volume 9 Number 1

https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/04-115

More than 900,000 Americans are now living with HIV. This statistic adds little to our understanding of their lives. Focus on Living is about 40 people, each with a story about living with HIV. They come from different parts of the country and from different economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. They are young and old, gay, straight, bisexual, and transgender. Each has a reason for participating in this moving project by San Francisco photographer Roslyn Banish, who has compiled riveting portraits with verbatim interviews. Each subject takes the stage, as it were, to give out a message--for example, the person whose partner died without leaving a will--or simply tells that person's story so that others might not feel so alone in their struggle. Thus, each participant leaves a legacy.