Jumping the hurdles with respect

When the patients say no, a portrait of the doc is still valuable

I recently had the opportunity to work with one of my favorite clients.

They're not just my favorite just because they love what I do. They're not even my favorite because any gig for them means a flight, a passport stamp and usually a headlong interactive experience with a culture I had not yet encountered.

Counseling a man who has not told his family his HIV st

 
It is also because what they do is important.

By working with them I have the great opportunity to show the world that important work. In a way to be a part of what they do, even if I don' see myself as the one doing the heavy lifting.

That said, these projects are hard work.

When there are hurdles in a shoot, you still shoot.

Testing blood for HIV

When in a permission-only situation you figure out a way to make those images for which permission is not needed.

When frustrated, you take a deep breath and then try something else.

In a case like this, you respect people's wishes and find another way to make telling images.

Work it and then work it again.

This was the nature of a part of my work in Guyana recently where the larger lesson taught me that the stigma for having HIV/AIDS is still significant.

With this stigma comes the unwillingness to be photographed. We would ask permission from the patient, who would say no. All we could do was wait and ask the next patient, after a while, asking permission even to photograph over their shoulder, no face, to see the healthcare professional in action rarely saw success. Sometimes they agreed, more often, they did not.

Hospice. A vigilant son and his mom.

Unfortunately these folks have very real concerns.

As I photographed a group-counseling session, (only the side of the room where people had consented), a woman discussed with the group her challenges, being avoided by people she cared about, a family member not accepting extra vegetables she had purchased at market.

It is not unusual for people to be shunned, for employers to make up excuses to fire the HIV-positive person. Another group member confronted that challenge.

A consenting patient checks in with a program nurse.

The level of difficulty in making pictures, of course pales in comparison to the real-life challenges people live with in this place. Sure there are ad campaigns, radio programs broadcast constantly to educate the populace, to mitigate this ostracism based on ignorance. In Guyana it seems a tall mountain they're climbing.

As I kept trying to produce images of these programs that my client would find valuable, the government and the aid organizations keep trying to eradicate the stigma.

Results come from picking yourself up and trying again.


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