That community would be South Philadelphia, where Lemons was born and raised. Aptly titled “Quiladelphia”, the young photographer’s most recent solo exhibition pays tribute to his hometown, as well as fellow members of the Black queer community who inhabit it. “Photography has always been a space for me to claim queer identity, especially with my last body of work,” Lemons says about the exhibit’s origins. Shot entirely on film, the series features his own friends and creative contemporaries – worlds away from the splashy celebrity portraits he’s become more widely known for.

“‘Quiladelphia’ challenged me a little bit more with intimacy because we were including nudity,” Lemons continues. “It’s really fun to have that level of trust from people that you just respect, like, oh, I’m respected enough that you guys trust me with your nude body. When doing nudes you have to be very careful, because I see so many people abuse that relationship and abuse that power. I’m very careful about navigating that conversation. I hope that it just empowers everyone to let your freak flag fly. Freak flag in the sense of, just be who you are.”

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Growing up as the child of teen parents, commuting between home in South Philly and school in the city centre, Lemons knows a thing or two about code switching, trying to figure out who you are. I wonder openly whether this has given him that innate instinct which is hard to find in even the most seasoned of photographers – an ability to recognise people for who they are; to afford them the level of understanding and respect required to create genuine, sincere portraiture; to not only see others, but allow them to feel seen.

“It’s different because ‘Quiladelphia’ democratised who gets to be shot by me. For a long time a lot of people thought it was just gonna be like Billie, these larger-than-life people,” says Lemons. “But anyone that I shoot, I really just respect as a person – and I’m interested in giving them a photo that they just enjoy, and really get to see themselves. That’s my first goal as a photographer. I just naturally want to be interested in you.”

If consuming honest and authentic imagery feels rare in our attention economy, that’s because it is. It’s what makes Lemons’ ability to bring out the humanity of his subjects all the more special, resulting in work that is equal parts probing, introspective and inspirational. “I think great art makes people uncomfortable, and I’m happy there’s so much conversation around this work. Because I don’t want silence. Historically, too, silence equals death.”

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Just as artists like Lyle Ashton Harris and Robert Mapplethorpe did with their groundbreaking work, Lemons has refused to stay silent throughout his career, making noise with thought-provoking imagery which makes queer identity the main focus. “Every time I have this new idea, I go, ‘No, there’s a gay artist that was talking about this in the 70s’”, says Lemons. “Thinking about my work on the largest scale of this country, how can I keep putting things forward that are taboo, that are from the communities that I embody?”

Lemons’ lens doesn’t search for the shock factor, but seeks – and in fact, demands – thoughtful, in-depth engagement with his work. To an admirer, it’s fascinating how his deeply personal point of view can translate into something so much larger. That same rawness with which he captures subjects who were once strangers in the most intimate of moments, is also a refreshing depiction of queerness and Blackness in all its forms.

“Photography for me has always been a way to preserve my own memory,” says Lemons. But seeing his artwork evolve over the years reflects like a running document of the times we’re living in. Look at the optimism of 2017’s “Glitterboy”, a glowing series of portraits where men proudly wear glittery make-up – captured right after Barack Obama’s presidency, when Lemons was just 19. “I feel so much younger when I look at ‘Glitterboy’,” he says. “I grew up in the Obama era, a young, Black gay man, just being like, ‘I can do whatever I want because my president is Black.’ I felt joyous.”

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Fresh on the heels of Trump-era chaos, the pandemic and the George Floyd protests, “Quiladelphia” is a more mature and somewhat sombre chapter of Lemons’ work. “With ‘Quiladelphia’ you see me grow up,” he says – a now 26-year-old’s perspective. “It’s a documentation of my queer journey and becoming. Now, when I think about my photography, I think about preservation of queer identity. There’s a tenderness that remains but you start to see me really question the world, how the world sees me and how I want to be perceived.”

Lemons speaks with the conviction of a socially conscious, politically focused member of Gen Z. “I think about people who really became pioneers of New Queer Cinema, and I’m bringing those undertones into my practice,” he says. “How do I become a part of that canon of people that just kept pushing queerness to the forefront?”

Lemons’ imagery indicates maturity beyond his years. Reflecting again on the buzz generated by his Vanity Fair cover, Lemons says, “It’s systemic racism on a maximum level when it comes to being a photographer, because a lot of these covers were only shot by white men before. For me, that cover was just a moment where I was like, this is the beginning. I still have to work my a** off because I know the colour of my skin. I know how I’m gonna be treated, no matter if this should be a moment.”

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Lemons’ aim is to make images that not only challenge views of gender, sexuality and race, but make us think about how those views came to be. “I definitely could’ve played it safe with ‘Quiladelphia’,” he says. “But I have my entire life to rebound from any situation that I’m ever in. If I do this, something that is so controversial that could blacklist me, then I’ll just spend the next part of my life figuring out how to get back on the good side,” he laughs. “But I’m not gonna stop making the work.”

“I have to take a moment to process my own celebrity,” Lemons muses. “It’s been unnerving to not know what’ll happen next in the sense of, ‘what will they say?’ The idea of infamy, it’s not as damning as it once was. So why not be ballsy?”

This is, after all, a photographer who commands respect. “Fame is very fleeting,” Lemons says, “but respect is forever.”