Tim Asato: A Photographer’s Return to the Lens
Tim Asato has called Barcelona home for 27 years, having originally come from Mexico to study filmmaking before discovering his true passion in photography. For over a decade, he built a career shooting for underwear labels and publications — most notably Boner magazine, where he spent years capturing intimate, striking imagery of some of the industry’s most recognizable faces.
Then the pandemic hit.
Like so many creatives, Tim lost nearly everything. His business closed. The magazine folded. What followed was four years of financial and legal fallout that kept him away from the camera, a brutal stretch for someone who once shot every single weekend. In that time, he picked up work where he could: driving a tourist bus through the city he loves and picking up shifts as a studio manager at a local photography studio.
It’s that studio and its remarkable bathroom, that became the backdrop for this shoot.
Tim had been in contact with Richard, a porn actor he’d photographed during his Boner days, for some time. Last summer, Richard messaged to say he’d be in Barcelona for a party and asked if they could shoot together. He also asked if his boyfriend, Disfrutamelo, could join. Logistics seemed impossible, the studio doesn’t typically open its doors for employee shoots, and the pair had only a narrow five-hour window before catching their flight home, arriving still laden with luggage.
Somehow, it all came together.
The couple wore pieces from the underwear label Coyote, and the energy on set was warm and easy. Disfrutamelo, also originally from Mexico, and Tim found plenty to bond over — Mexican food, shared references, that particular shorthand that comes from a common home. They shot, laughed, and then rushed off to the airport.
The images have been sitting quietly since then, waiting for the right moment.
“I have been sitting on these pictures for a while,” Tim reflects, “because I was either working or not in the right headspace.”
That moment, it seems, has finally arrived. A cinephile, gamer, and comic book reader who never stopped seeing the world through a director’s eye, Tim Asato is finding his way back to photography, figuring out, shoot by shoot, where everything fits again.
Photographer: Tim Asato @asatotim
Models: Dickie James @misterrichardjames Melo @disfrutamelo
See the full set of photos here:
