In a poignant series, Adrian Chesser chronicles his confession of his AIDs diagnosis to loved ones and friends. Chesser set up a camera that captured the expressions and reactions of people moments after revealing his life-changing diagnosis. From sadness and shock to carefully nonchalant, Chesser captured the spectrum of emotions that accompanies news of such magnitude. In an interview with Huffington Post, he says “When I thought about having to disclose my illness to my friends I would panic, which didn’t make sense, because I have an amazing group of friends who are all very loving and supportive. I realized that these intense emotions where actually based in my childhood fear of abandonment. Growing up gay in a small town in a very religious family, the fear of being found out and cast out was always present and right under the surface. It occurred to me that if I ritualized the act of telling, that it might be possible to transform these childhood fears that were still effecting me as an adult.”

Find out more about Adrian Chesser here!