VOYEUR2 – Capturing desire, control and intimacy
VOYEUR2 brings together eight photographers whose work interrogates kink and eroticism across multiple genders, sexualities and subcultures. For ZERO.NINE, curator and contributor Matt Ford interviewed Joaquin, a London-based gay portrait photographer who has spent over a decade inside the city’s fetish scene and is also part of the exhibition. He has shaped the visual identity of Fetish Week London and Recon, collaborated with the Tom of Finland Foundation, and contributed to major kink archives and exhibitions.
Interview Matt Ford Photography Joaquin
When I shoot a portrait, the camera becomes a way of taking charge. On set I feel in control, almost dominant. Does the camera create a similar dynamic for you?
It is more collaborative than dominant for me. I am quite shy, so I had to learn how to give directions. Most of the people I photograph aren’t professional models. I shoot real fetishists, especially for Recon. They arrive with their own gear, their own desires and their own practices. I want truth in how they express themselves. So yes, holding the camera gives power, but I do not shoot to be powerful. I shoot to build trust and let people communicate the thing they are actually into. You need confidence for that, and you put on a persona of being in charge, but it still comes from collaboration.
A lot of kink imagery collapses into porn tropes. Where do you draw the line?
I have not done much explicit work, but I want to make explicit images that are beautiful rather than made to arouse. Stigma around the phallus is absurd. Historically, the phallus symbolised good fortune, beauty and power. I want to reclaim that. For me, the line is intention. What is the purpose of the picture. If you are going to make it, make it interesting and make it well.
How do you see your work among the other photographers in the exhibition
My commercial fetish work is archetypal gay fetish imagery, masculine, geared. My personal work is different. I try to find intimacy. I might only shoot a hood, or latex gloves, or one detail and nothing else. I want images that grow with time. Most imagery today exists for one second and then dies. I want the opposite of instant gratification. I started on film, so print still feels like the natural destination.
“Fetish is romantic for me. I do not separate fetish, kink and love. It is all one language.”
VOYEUR2 celebrates photographers who turn desire into something fascinating, often brutal but always deeply human. Do you only photograph what you desire, or do ideas, stories, or challenges also drive your work?
I mostly photograph what I desire. Fetish is romantic for me. I do not separate fetish, kink and love. It is all one language. I want the pictures to hold that. Everyone has their thing. I want to show the beauty inside that.
Straight male photographers get accused of objectifying women. As a gay man photographing other gay men, are you objectifying your subjects in a different way?
I shoot friends or people who are openly active in the kink community. I want subjects who already embrace this part of themselves. Many want to be objectified. If someone wants to be turned into an object, I am doing something for them, not to them. There is trust, consent and mutual desire. I once mummified a friend as a Christmas present. That is objectification and affection at the same time.
I often notice a difference between how male and female photographers approach erotica. Women sometimes feel more intimate, men sometimes more objectifying. Do you see that difference?
There are differences. Gay men are closer to some of those dynamics than straight men. Queer desire can be romantic and animalistic at once. Primal and soft. Two sides of the same coin.
One of my favourite works of yours is the image used on the VOYEUR2 poster. Who is he and how did that picture happen?
Adrian. He is a good friend. I met him in a cage at a club. We shot this after lockdown in a tiny studio. There were quiet moments between the explicit ideas. Him warming his hands next to a heater. Small unguarded gestures. I like those. Intimacy in the in between.
”There is no point in making fetish imagery that looks like everyone else. I want new stories, new points of view, new fantasies.”
Which of your exhibited images is your favourite and why?
The boy kneeling in the corner. He looks like a sub left waiting. You do not know if someone is watching him or if he is alone. It is ambiguous. Quiet. A moment suspended. You can project your own story onto it.
What do you find progressive in kink photography and what clichés need to die?
Anyone pushing boundaries. I find a lot of energy at Klub Verboten. Miss Gold, also showing in VOYEUR2, is fearless. I admire Marc Martin. He puts beauty and filth together as equal forces, not opposites. The cliché that needs killing is repetition. So many images repeat the same formula. You cannot tell the photographers apart. There is no point in making fetish imagery that looks like everyone else. I want new stories, new points of view, new fantasies.
What makes Joaquin’s work distinct is his refusal to separate desire, romance and fetish. Whether he photographs latex gloves, a jockstrap, or a masked submissive kneeling in silence, the image is never only about sex. It is about the people inside the desire. That is why his work matters inside VOYEUR2. It reminds us that kink is not a niche. It is human.
VOYEUR2 – only open 12–14th December 2025 at MF Studio London (in Hackney Downs Studios).
Tickets and info HERE
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