PHOTOGRAPHY: Matthew Leifheit’s “To Die Alive” Captures Fire Island in a “Nocturnal Erotic Fever-Dream”.

Across 77 intimate and atmospheric photographs, American photographer Matthew Leifheit captures the multiple layers and histories of Fire Island, the famed gay mecca off the southern shore of Long Island, New York. 

“The wide-ranging subjects of Matthew Leifheit’s portraits reflect the intergenerational community who come to the island for refuge or employment, ranging from weekend visitors to sugar daddies to bartenders and sex workers. Tinged with sadness, the book's climax mixes feelings of pleasure with desperation and loss,” write Jeremy O. Harris and Jack Parlett for ArtBook.

“There’s a closeness between sex and death that’s palpable in the environment. The Meat Rack was a popular place for people to scatter the ashes of their friends who died in the early days of the crisis in New York,” says Leifheit in DAZED. “I think it’s really beautiful that people whose families didn’t want them, often their friends would take them to this place where they had been happy and able to express themselves”.

All photos courtesy Matthew Leifheit.