Not a still life

Moving around his garage studio, Kurt Weston deftly pulls multiple tripods, reflectors and a backdrop from shelves loaded with his camera equipment.

He’s setting up a photo shoot. The final touch: He nimbly unscrews the back of a chair to use as his perch.

Such activity might not seem worth notice except Weston is a legally blind art photographer.

A Chicago transplant who now lives in Huntington Beach, Weston was among 23 winners last month of an international competition titled “Transformations,” organized by the Very Special Arts, California, a nonprofit organization that helps people with disabilities participate in and enjoy the arts.

Weston, a former fashion photographer, was diagnosed with AIDS in 1991 and was told he had six months to live.

He said he learned to “see” again after losing his vision to the disease.

Now he owns hundreds of hats ? to shade his “good” right eye from blinding sunlight ? and “still stay somewhat color coordinated with my clothes.”

When he was first diagnosed, his doctor advised him not to tell anyone to avoid prejudice. He continued working at Pivot Point, where he was the lead fashion photographer until his vision started going and he began seeing floaters in his camera lens and the backdrops.

His ophthalmologist confirmed that CMV retinitis had destroyed the retina of his left eye and left just some peripheral vision in his right eye.

As his condition continued to worsen, Weston’s brother, Paul, asked him to come to California so he could live out his last days in nice weather.

California’s golden touch, aided by the new retroviral cocktail drugs, helped him get his health back. But his vision was permanently damaged, and Weston thought so was his career.

As his world spiraled into darkness, Weston started putting together a set of works that described his mental and emotional agony.

“Peering Through the Darkness” is a set of self-portraits of Weston. The image that’s won him repeated honors depicts him wearing his monocle and pressing his face against glass, trying to wipe away the white floaters that obstruct his vision.

“I find my inspiration in what I’m able to create ? creating things that makes a difference,” he said.

Weston still develops his own prints in his garage sink.

A magnifying lens with the thickness of two bread slices helps him to read or see things held closely to his face.

ForWeston, showing his work at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., as part of winning the international competition is a high point in his second career.

“It’s just starting to take off,” he said of his career as an art photographer.

Top art experts, from such places as New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Kennedy Center as well as an independent curator, selected Weston’s work after sifting through 292 entries from all over the world.

Weston is no stranger to recognition. His work has been exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and San Francisco City Hall. He also has sold some of his pieces to the Houston Museum.

“Kurt has given so much to his local community,” said Alice Parente, of Very Special Arts. “Not only is he a wonderful artist but a magnificent one, looking to help other people through his art.”

What he would really love to do the rest of his life is teach and help other people through his work, Weston said.

Weston is enrolled in the graduate program for fine arts at Cal State Fullerton, and is working on portraits of seniors as part of course work.

The images in his series “Still Life/Still Living” are almost like refined portraitures in charcoal and pencil. But they also capture the lines on faces which tell of sadness, loneliness and an esprit de corps that he likely shares with them. hbi.08-weston-CPhotoInfoG51RNDJO20060608j0gsrcncINDEPENDENT(LA)Former fashion photographer Kurt Weston, who went blind due to an AIDS-related condition, at his home studio in Huntington Beach. hbi.08-weston-2-BPhotoInfoG51RNIDD20060608j0gvfhnc(LA)Kurt Weston’s “Losing the Light.”