FLORIAN HETZ

“At one point I started to take photos of my lovers during and/or after sex and that´s how it really started.” – Interview with German photographer, Florian Hetz .

How are you doing?

I´m great, I´m in LA right since a month. The Tom of Finland foundation has invited me to be their artist in residence for three month. It´s fantastic to live and work in the beautiful house where Tom of Finland actually used to live. The first three nights I even stayed in Tom’s room. Waking up being surrounded with his personal artefacts was a crazy experience. Everyone visiting LA should go and get a guided tour. The guys who are running the foundation do a fantastic job keeping Tom’s work alive and relevant.

Could you tell us a bit about your background? How did you get interested photography?

My background is theatre and opera and as a teenager I was drawing a lot. Mostly photorealistic. I never really wanted to be a photographer. As a child my parents moved me from Frankfurt to tiny village in the middle of nowhere in Germany and my way of escaping this place was by reading a lot and studying photo books. So I guess I trained my eyes from an early age. I started to take photos by accident more or less by taking over the camera of a friend of mine, taking photos of my friends at parties and after hours, but that was more like a private little visual diary. At one point I started to take photos of my lovers during and/or after sex and that´s how it really started.

Can you tell us why you concetrate on body details?

I like the little details that we all see, but hardly ever register. It gets interesting when a detail of a body becomes nearly abstract and you don´t know straight away which part of the body you are looking at. Ideally I make you look very closely at something and make you see things for the first time properly.

Is there any body detail what you have not photographed jet, but you wish?

I guess I have covered all of the male the body pretty intensely, but lately I get more and more interested in legs.

Sometimes you chot very kinky stuff, but even that looks beautiful and sexy on your pictures. How do you describe beauty?

Beauty is such a personal thing. I guess my concept of beauty differs from the regular concept of beauty in some ways and I often find beauty in unexpected places.

Are you as kinky as your pictures are?

Probably even more.

You recently came out as HIV+. Why did you decided to share this info with your audience?

I don´t take instagram too serious, but I figured I could use it to raise awareness about the HIV stigma. I´m privileged enough to live in Berlin where being HIV+ is not as stigmatised as in other places and countries. Because of the HIV treatment my viral load is undetectable since over ten years, which means I can not pass the virus on. It´s time that people realise that being HIV+ (in countires with affordable access to the treatment) doesn´t mean you are a victim, doesn´t mean that you are dying of the virus any time soon. It´s a chronicle l disease that is treatable. Besides taking two pills once a day my life is the same as the life of any HIV- person. If you don´t know your HIV status, get tested! If the result is positive, get treatment. It´s way more dangerous not to know your status and potentially pass it on, unknowingly.

How was your first react when the doctor sad the ’news’ and after how did you dealed with it?

I grew up during the AIDS epidemic, but when I got diagnosed the treatment was already so advanced that being HIV+ wasn´t a death sentence anymore. I had many friends living with the virus for a long time. So it wasn´t a big deal. I had many role models showing me every day, that being HIV+ wasn´t the end of the world.

If something, than what changed in your life after the diagnosis?

I started to take care more of myself and my priorities changed a lot. And after the diagnosis i felt an even stronger responsibility for my sex partners. my nightmare would have been to pass it on. That´s why it´s so incredible that with the treatment you can´t pass the virus on anymore.

Currently obsessed for…

My new camera. I just bought it two days ago and I´m absolutely obsessed with the taco trucks in LA.

Do you have any big plan for 2018?

In may I have a solo show in hamburg and hopefully I will do another book with the work I am creating at the Tom of Finland foundation right now.