JOURNEYS THROUGH DARKNESS: A Biography by Alina Oswald. Photographs by Kurt Weston. Foreword by Guido A. Sanchez
Journeys Through Darkness is the compelling true story of Kurt Weston, who used unorthodox and experimental HIV/AIDS treatments for his terminal condition. Some of the experimental treatments caused Kurt to be diagnosed as “Legally Blind“. But blindness did not deter Kurt’s ambition to become a Fine Art Photographer, nor AIDS stop him from advocating for others suffering the same disease.
Kurt Weston began his photography career as a Commercial Photographer, then later switched to Fashion Photography, even though he wanted nothing more than to be a Fine Art Photographer. Photography almost became a thing of the past when HIV/AIDS had Kurt on the brink of death – not once, but several times.
With vision totally lost in one eye, and the other seeing nothing but clouded dimness, Kurt Weston portrays his sight disability and the HIV/AIDS afflicted through B&W photographs. Kurt’s strategic use of light in darkness cause his subjects (some being himself) to haunt the mind of viewers in thought-provoking ways; which is, by all rights, his artistic and societal intent.
Author, Alina Oswald, thoroughly envelops readers of Journeys Through Darkness into the darkness of the AIDS epidemic that first swept the gay community in the United States in the early ’80s. She traverses Kurt Weston’s personal and social life, through employment and unemployment, and through his daily ordeal of trying to stay alive while full blown AIDS consumed his body, all when living in communities pregnated with stigmatism and prejudice against the HIV/AIDS infected. Ms. Oswald not only depicts Kurt in his weakest times, but at his strongest times; and though these times, she reveals the warrior within Kurt – the warrior attuned to survival, no matter the odds.
I very highly recommend Journeys Through Darkness by Alina Oswald, for anyone interested in HIV/AIDS or Fine Art Black and White Photography.
Read my interview with Alina Oswald.
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