I HAVE AIDS — ADRIAN CHESSER'S PHOTOGRAPHY IS GROUND-BREAKING

Debbie, photographed by Adrian Chesser

Adrian Chesser was raised to be a Pentecostal preacher. Adrian Chesser discovered he was gay. Adrian Chesser was later diagnosed with AIDS. 
Adrian Chesser is a photographer. Now what?

That could easily be the preamble to the seminal photography project I have something to tell you by Adrian Chesser, who was born in 1965 and grew up in a small town in South Florida, USA. He studied the Bible, played the piano and spoke in 'tongues'. He learnt to cast out demons. He knew, as a gay man, he would be an outcast in this environment. "I left home at the first opportunity," recalls Chesser who grew up with deep-seated fears of rejection and abandonment.

His twenties became a "life that was unhinged from the grounding forces of family and home and was fuelled by alcohol, drugs and sex." He says photography gave this "brave new life" form and structure.

A friend gave Chesser a camera; he fell in love with light and image. In a closet under a stairwell, he taught himself
photography even as he worked as a dish-washer, busboy and waiter; he played Santa Claus, assisted gardeners and drug-dealers. He wrestled alligators at an Indian reservation. And he even hustled sex for money.

But through it all, photography was Chesser's anchor. He practised it every day "as a kind of spiritual ritual, a sacred ccupation, a way to understand and interpret my life," he says.

In his thirties, photography saved Chesser's life. He was hospitalised, tested positive for HIV and was diagnosed with AIDS. He had an extreme physical reaction whenever he thought about having to tell his friends and family about his condition. "I would panic," he says. It didn't make sense, because he had a loving and supporting group of friends.

He soon realised that these intense emotions were rooted in his childhood fear of abandonment. "It was the same reaction I had as a kid whenever I had to disclose something uncomfortable to my parents; fearing rejection or even abandonment if larger secrets were revealed. It occurred to me that if I ritualised the act of telling, that it might be possible to transform these childhood fears that were still affecting me as an adult."

He invited each friend to his studio to have their picture taken — a simple head shot for a "new project". They weren't given any other information. For a backdrop Chesser used the curtains from the living room of his childhood home. He put everyone through the same routine ("a formal process that proved to be transformative"). At the beginning of each shoot he would start by saying: "I have something to tell you."

Chesser recalls: "Each sitter's reaction was unique depending upon their own experience of loss, illness and death, creating a portrait of unguarded, unsettling honesty." He photographed 47 people; shot two rolls of 36 exposure film per person.

"Everyone was brave, no one asked me to stop and no one got up and left. We had a conversation a shared experience, there were tears and laughter and above all there was love. In the end there was no abandonment."

The photo-shoot took a couple of weeks; the editing and printing became another layer of the healing process. Chesser found himself choosing the image that most reflected his own experience in a way they were self-portraits. "I could see in the contact sheets where there would be a moment when it would be too much for the sitter and they would have to go away, either by closing their eyes or turning their head away from the camera, but in the end they would always come back, it was another moment when I realised I had not been abandoned."

Chesser cried a lot while printing the photos — "mostly out of gratitude." He printed the photographs on glossy paper because the surface is reflective. "It creates a glare that distracts from seeing the actual image," Chesser explains, "not unlike what we do as humans creating facades to distract from what lies beneath. Also, the surface is extremely fragile. Scratches on the surface are like scars on a human body, speaking to the experiences of life that a photo has as an object."

Chesser was diagnosed with AIDS close to a decade ago. Today, he is healthy "and happy. I'm told by my doctor that my immune system is now normal for anyone my age," he says. In the ensuing years Chesser went on to do inspiring photographic series such as Gay campground, Mercury vapour, Deluge, Tate, Self and so on. However, I have something to tell you, has become a body of work that speaks to the universal experience of loss and grief and hope in the face of despair. "The phrase 'I have something to tell you' becomes a kind of mile-marker in a life, delineating what came before from what comes after," Chesser says.

It was never Chesser's intention to 'capture the moment'. His intent was to create a ritual that would help heal a deep seated emotional trauma. And it has!

You can see more of Chesser's work here: www.adrainchesser.com/