Gay Times magazine relaunches with a still life cover shoot dedicated to d*cks

At the start of 2025, the Gay Times creative team decided it was high time to launch a new look for the magazine. Its previous design had served them well for nearly a decade, but, as Gay Times art director Jack Rowe says “it’s important to evolve and keep things feeling fresh”. To mark this new era, Jack says the team wanted a commission that would take the first issue in a “bold” and “unexpected” direction – something “a little provocative, a little sexy”.

Typically, the magazine featured cover stars, and it felt like a good time to challenge that. “We’re seeing a growing appetite for deeper storytelling, conversations that amplify diverse voices within our community,” says Jack. “With this redesign, we wanted the covers to serve as a platform not just for high-profile names but also for powerful narratives and emerging creative talent. It’s about creating a space where important stories take centre stage, while also championing a new generation of photographers, illustrators and artists from within the LGBTQ+ community.” It became clear that the photographer and art-director Marloes Haarmans – who’s carved a niche in alternative still life work – would be the perfect person for the job. “In our entire history, we’d never featured a still life on the cover, so Marloes’ striking imagery felt like the perfect way to make a statement,” says Jack.

The brief Marloes received gave her complete creative freedom, there was just one prerequisite – “it had to be about dicks”.The photographer then brought on the set designer Pierre Vaillant to collaborate on the project. Together, they were looking for ways that could "redefine a recognised queer language” while still “exploring modern gay semiotics”, Marloes says. She continues: “One of the most important things for us was to make it all inclusive and to avoid obvious metaphors or stereotypes, that we have seen enough to refer to d*cks!” The pair decided to divide the shoot into three different shoots and styles each involving its own sculpture, or “art installation”. Each sculpture features an ‘everyday object’ with a conceptual queer connotation – like socks, soap, guide rope, a dollop of whipped cream, or a candle – combined with a sex toy.

Marloes has always been drawn to “beautiful objects”, and enjoyed scouring the internet for “weird but aesthetically interesting looking sex toys”. It got to the point where Marloes was finding toys whose purpose was completely impossible to decipher. Like a collection of chastity cages, stainless steel contraptions that Marloes and Pierre paired with long, colourful balloons – “they turned each other almost into little characters”, Marloes says. Overall, the photographer wanted to achieve a certain symbiosis between the everyday objects and the sex toys: “In some of the images, they blend in so well that you don’t even read it as a ‘sex toy’ anymore.”

For Marloes, the project was the “perfect” brief. It allowed her full creative freedom, allowing her to bring in both her skills in art direction and photography. But also, it allowed Marloes to bring in a personal narrative. “It felt special seeing the work out in the world, that world being Gay Times, and to be able to represent my queer community – which is a big part of my life,” says Marloes. “I always thought that being a still life photographer, I couldn’t be as active in that way, but I learned that I can! It felt meaningful, important and personal to me.” Now, Marloes is keen to get stuck into making more work with a queer narrative, continuing to develop her own unique approach and tone.