Adrain was born on May 5th, 1965, in Florida and is the son of a priest. His father forced him to take organ lessons and to learn the bible by heart. So it’s a life that a young griper didn’t like. He didn’t miss his first chance to leave his home unnoticed, from then on he was on his own. When his friend gave him a camera for the first time, he was thrilled. The the light and the shadow, the image as a whole were his first great love. Eventually, he taught himself how to take photos and how to develop the photographs.
Obviously, photography is an expensive hobby to have if no one wants to buy your pictures. So he needed a job. He took any job he could, from working as a waiter, dish washer, bus ticket tallyman to even fight with alligators at a reservoir for Native Americans. He even was a mall Santa, sold his body and a gardener.
In his 20s, he was finally able to make money with photography, but his life kept going downhill. His photographs always showed us the people in his world. The people you know and the ones you experience when you’re living in a limbo between the society: Native Americans and poachers, beautiful young girls and old women, divas, homeless, wild youngsters, religious fanatics and Satanists. Persons he took pictures of at a wonderful place in the nature or just where he was.
It took him until his 30s until photography saved his life. He was on spiritual trips through nature and was trying to take care of his old wounds. The images are images of travelers in the nature trying to find an adventure, which has become so hard in our modern world.
However, the photo series that got me the most is the one he took when he was in his 40s. He found out that he was HIV-positive. Adrain asked all his friends to visit him and as he told the news to his friends, he pressed the trigger on his camera to take pictures of their reaction. I guess they’re not the most beautiful portraits ever, but I think they are some of the most emotional and honest ones. The photo series is called “I have something to tell you” and is the climax of his journey in my eyes.
„I have something to tell you…“
Bildquelle: http://adrainchesser.com/
