Living with HIV involves more than taking meds. But sometimes it’s hard to figure out how to talk about the ins and outs of daily life with your health care team. Taking photos can help sort out what is helping—and hurting—your health from day to day.

Michelle Teti, a social worker, gave cameras to a group of HIV-positive women in Missouri and asked them to bring 
ack snapshots of their lives. “The idea,”  Teti says, “is to use photography and discussion to identify and problem-solve health needs.”

Teti describes how it works.  “One woman took pictures of her flooded basement and broken-down refrigerator and used the pictures to help her advocate for better housing,” she says. Others shot photos to boost their self-images as women with HIV. See the problem, solve the problem.