1988 Photo Contest, Daily Life, 3rd prize
Photographer

Jane Evelyn Atwood

Cosmos

01 January, 1987

A close friend pays AIDS patient Jean-Louis (43) a last visit during the last four-and-a-half months of his life. As the end draws near, Jean-Louis can no longer keep any food down and must take a huge amount of medication. He depends on morphine to relieve his pain, having lost 23kg and being too ill to stay at home any longer. 

Jean-Louis was the first person in France who allowed himself to be photographed during the final stages of his illness, wishing to inform people of the realities of a devastating and destructive disease, which was ignored and sometimes even denied in France at the time. He died on 27 November 1987.

About the photographer

Jane Evelyn Atwood

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