AIDS victims show their stories — in pictures

Lynn Warshafsky, co-founder of Venice Arts and founder with Baer and Hubbard of "The House Is Small," recalls editing photos on her laptop midway through the visit. Assisting her was 16-year-old Innocencia, who had lost her parents to AIDS. She and her older brother were struggling together after relatives abandoned them.

Warshafsky recalls the teenager's critique of the photos: "We're 70 percent there, but I don't see enough joy."

"She had this extraordinary spirit," Warshafsky said of the teenager.

One photo shows two boys gleefully displaying a toy mobile phone they recovered from the trash dump that looms behind them. Behind the camera was Jeremias, 12, who was taken in by a family after losing both parents to AIDS and who dreams of becoming a pilot.

"This photo shows children who are friends," Jeremias says in a quote posted next to the photo on the project's Web site. "It's what we should all be."

"The House is Small" is aiming for results on an individual and global basis.

For the children involved, the instruction they get in photography may open the door to unimagined job possibilities, Hubbard said.

A Mozambique group, Reencontro, is working to build on what "The House is Small" started by pairing youngsters with local photographers to improve their skills and perhaps ready them for work in the field or a related one, he said.

(One American youngster drew inspiration from the project: Baer's 17-year-old son, Caleb, accompanied him to Africa with camera in hand, and his work has been shown in Los Angeles-area museums and galleries.)

The more ambitious goal is to put the photos of "The House is Small" participants in front of those who can implement change. Photo exhibits have been held at universities, including Harvard, and at the International AIDS Conference.

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"We're taking pictures to the United Nations, to policy makers, to let the people speak and be heard in a way that maybe they hadn't been before," Baer said.

"The House Is Small" has become part of a larger community of such projects, linked by the Institute for Photographic Empowerment, founded by Baer, Venice Arts and the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and its former dean, Geoff Cowan, a USC professor.

The institute fosters and serves as a conduit for photo and video projects such as "The House is Small," Baer said.

Will the hoped-for social change follow?

"The pictures have the power to bring acute awareness," Hubbard said. "What humans do with that, who knows."

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