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I started grad school at Ohio University in Athens in January, 1990. Right away, I began volunteering at the Pater Noster House, an AIDS hospice in Columbus, maybe 50 miles from Athens. In March, I started taking photos there for a school project, and got to know the staff and amazing people like Peta who was volunteering and caring for David. On the day that David died, I happened to be visiting Peta. It was in the morning and they came in to get Peta so he could be with David, and he took me with him.
I stayed outside David’s room, minding my own business, when David’s mom, Kay, came out and said, ‘We’d like you to photograph people saying their final goodbyes to David.’ I went in, and just stood in the corner of that room, quiet, barely moving, and it all happened as I watched and photographed it. After that, I did realize that, yes, something truly incredible had unfolded, right in front of me.
I had worked for newspapers for about 12 years already when I went to grad school and was very interested in covering AIDS by the time I got to Columbus. Of course, it was difficult to find a community of people with HIV and AIDS willing to be photographed back then, but when I was given the okay to take pictures at Pater Noster I knew I was doing something that was important — important to me, at least. I honestly never believed that it would lead to being published in LIFE, or winning awards, or being involved in anything controversial — certainly nothing as epic as the Benetton controversy.
In the end, the picture of David became the one image that was seen around the world, but there was so much more that I had tried to document with Peta, and the Kirbys, and the other people at Pater Noster. And all of that sort of got lost, and forgotten. - Therese Frare
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