Chris Hinojosa

The Photo That Changed The Face Of HIV/AIDS

Nearly 25 years ago, David Kirby lay on the cusp of death. Kirby, 32, had nearly reached the end of his fatal fight against HIV/AIDS when journalism student Therese Frare took the photo seen above.

In the photo, Kirby’s gaze appears vacant; he is a man resigned to a fate that his family–also broken by HIV/AIDS–just cannot bring itself to see. For many, the raw anguish radiating from this photo exemplified the tragedy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which at this point in time had struck millions around the world.

The photo, which was later published in Life and then used by clothing company United Colors of Benetton in an advertising campaign, is said to have changed the face of AIDS.

Candy Darling on her Deathbed, 1973. Peter Hujar.

Candy Darling was born James Lawrence Slattery, one of Andy Warhol’s superstars. Hujar gets us close… but we are never too intimate. As Darling stares beyond us, it is as if she is detached from their surroundings. 

It is often said that death was not far from his [Hujar’s] lens. As a gay man living through the height of the AIDS crisis in New York, he was part of a community that came face to face with its own mortality.

11 By Boris Bidjan Saberi