Access to Life.

December 3, 2008 12:08 PM

Eight Magnum photographers portray people in nine countries around the world before and four months after they began antiretroviral treatment for AIDS.
posted by chunking express (12 comments total)

It should be noted that these are videos that take a really long time to load. Maybe when I have more time.
posted by desjardins at 12:20 PM on December 3, 2008

It's kind of a shame we have to wait through an animation with sound in order to see the photos.

Damn interesting, though.
posted by dunkadunc at 12:20 PM on December 3, 2008

Nice photos; hated the flash interface is this year's tl;dr.

And it's almost always a completely valid criticism.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:25 PM on December 3, 2008 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I wish they'd just post up photos and commentary too, but the people at Magnum seem to love them some video. What can you do? The photographs are pretty great -- hence the post.
posted by chunking express at 12:28 PM on December 3, 2008

I think I'm the only person on the internet not at all bothered by Flash. And I rather liked the photos.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:35 PM on December 3, 2008

But remember, folks, HIV doesn't call AIDS, it's all an invention of Western Imperialism and Big Pharma!
posted by rodgerd at 12:58 PM on December 3, 2008

Buffering...buffering...buffering...
posted by gimonca at 3:06 PM on December 3, 2008

Sorry, this is a great cause but it's so fucking slow and I just want to see the pictures because they'll make me hopeful. You would think Magnum, of all people would know that a guy who's still at work at 7:10 p.m. would much rather see pictures than go through a shitty flash menu and wait for a 'movie' to load.
posted by parmanparman at 4:10 PM on December 3, 2008

This is so great! Thanks for posting this. I was a little unnerved by the super-cheerful sounding music in the Peru essay. But what an excellent project. The Russia one was so good and so sad. Can anyone explain why someone with HIV would get serious swelling, like Olive in Rwanda had? I've never seen that before.
posted by wowbobwow at 7:03 PM on December 3, 2008

Good series. I was a little puzzled at times, though. It seemed that sometimes a bit of cultural context (?) was missing. Like when the Indian guy said he wanted to wear a Sari and go to Bombay to get operated on (???), but that this would have alienated his family. What was that all about?

Otherwise really good. Really sad, too.
posted by Avenger at 7:59 PM on December 3, 2008

Like when the Indian guy said he wanted to wear a Sari and go to Bombay to get operated on (???), but that this would have alienated his family. What was that all about?

A sari is an item of women's clothing. You may draw your own conclusions regarding the nature of his operation.
posted by atrazine at 11:46 PM on December 3, 2008

This was really excellent. Thanks for sharing it.
posted by heatherann at 12:09 PM on December 5, 2008