Background
I am a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and Senior Flight Surgeon. Before medical school, I studied art history and photography, and I first took up photography as a way to understand what makes a great image.
My photographic series The Bonham Project, begun in the late 1980s, documents men—many of them active-duty U.S. Air Force members—living with HIV. More than 300 of my photographs are held in major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Library of Congress, and the Princeton University Art Museum.
Service Unerased is my most recent project. It is driven by anger and disbelief that honorably serving transgender Americans have been forced out—effectively erased—from the U.S. military. This work seeks to restore their visibility, to bear witness, and to unerase their service.
Work
Project Founder
Jon O'Neal, MD, MPH, MFA
Testimonials: "Working with Jon was great. As someone who usually hates having my photo taken and gets pretty uncomfortable during the process, I was surprised by how chill and easy the session actually was. Jon made me feel relaxed from the start, and just being able to chat about our service made the whole thing feel much more natural. For a project as important as this one, I'm really glad it was Jon behind the camera." ---Sam