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Low tea in the pines, 2008

"When I started taking photographs in Fire Island a decade ago, I had not yet seen or heard about the work of Jared French, Paul Cadmus, and Margaret Hoening French done in the 1940s or the beautiful, haunting Polaroids of life in the Pines in the '70s and '80s taken by Tom Bianchi", Koitz explains.

"In fact, coming from Europe, I remember the first time that I visited Fire Island, I was completely shocked by what I saw and especially by the people I saw there. Shocked, because it was so different from anything I knew, and also enchanting for that same reason. So, from that beginning, I have had a sort of "love - skepticism" relationship with this gay island but as years passed and I examined my body of work, I began to see a pattern".

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Cameron & Adam, 2009

"It did not seem to matter where I took my photos - at a party or an event or in a private house - but rather the spirit in which I took them", Koitz says. "I always aimed to capture life in a "normal" setting. That certainly doesn’t mean in a boring one, but when people are having fun or performing. In my view, these are normal people celebrating their lives, celebrating who they are and what they do, and that’s the viewpoint that I like to pass to the viewer."

PHOTO: OUT.COM / KOITZ

Leaving the Grove to Invade the Pines, 2011

"My photos from Fire Island are always colorful and full of life and that’s the side that I want to show", Koitz explains. "I hope they will live up to the work of the fine artists who’ve gone before me".

PHOTO: OUT.COM / KOITZ

Dancing in the Valley of Dolls, 2010

"A good photograph is quite often the result of a collaboration between the photographer and his or her subjects, and so when people tell me they are comfortable around me, that is a great help to achieving that".

PHOTO: OUT.COM / KOITZ

Dallas Dubois, 2010

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Andrea at the Great South Bay, 2014

Fire Island has inspired me to undertake another ongoing photo project. For now I am calling it “The Fire Island Series". In it, I take photos of a naked man in a specific place, such as in or by the flat horizon of the Great South Bay or in the Meat Rack between the Grove and the Pines, and see how they become just one.

PHOTO: OUT.COM / KOITZ