| In the fall of 1994, I began to photograph lovers in the SM scene in New York. My work had explored issues of sexual desire for many years, and sadomasochism was not new to me. It was the natural next step in a journey that I had set out on many years before. I had worked as a set photographer on over 300 hardcore and SM/fetish porn movies. In that earlier work, I looked behind the scenes of making porn movies to reveal the human beings behind the sex machine image. The moments I loved were when they called a cut in the middle of an orgy scene, and the actors would drop their guard. They’d pull out a cigarette and stare off into space, like combat soldiers with a thousand-yard stare, except that they were still naked and surrounded by the accoutrements of the sex business. | 
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Barbara Nitke
Barbara Nitke, Bathroom Kiss, 1995. Silver gelatin photographic print, 20 x 24 in. Courtesy of the artist.In the fall of 1994, I began to photograph lovers in the SM scene in New York. My work had explored issues of sexual desire for many years, and sadomasochism was not new to me. It was the natural next step in a journey that I had set out on many years before.
I had worked as a set photographer on over 300 hardcore and SM/fetish porn movies. In that earlier work, I looked behind the scenes of making porn movies to reveal the human beings behind the sex machine image. The moments I loved were when they called a cut in the middle of an orgy scene, and the actors would drop their guard. They’d pull out a cigarette and stare off into space, like combat soldiers with a thousand-yard stare, except that they were still naked and surrounded by the accoutrements of the sex business.
For years those were the little ironic moments that I loved to shoot. When I began photographing couples in the leather community, my vision changed. Suddenly, it was in the sexual moment—or the moment deep in SM play—when I thought the people were most profoundly real. And that became the thing I wanted to record.
I wanted to capture the bond between the couples, rather than the disconnection. I was enchanted by the love and exuberance and passion that I saw all around me at the private play parties I attended. I wanted to photograph their deep intimacy and trust, two of the concepts that underlie all SM practices. I became immersed in their world—“the scene”—and 13 years went by in the blink of an eye.
The people I have photographed over those years have given me an extraordinary gift. They have allowed me to be a part of their world in a way that I could have never conceived. Every couple I’ve photographed has taught me something new about the nature of the erotic impulse, about sexual desire, about humanity.
Above all, they’ve taught me that no matter how we’re wired to express love, true freedom is in having the courage to be who we are.
