The South Philadelphia-born, Brooklyn-based photographer has developed a strong visual language that unspools notions of masculinity, uplifts Black queer identity, and draws on themes of community and belonging. 2017’s Glitterboy saw Lemons sprinkle Black men with glitter in a stunning series that confronted stereotype with beauty, while his 2018 project Purple meditated on the Black family portrait. In 2021, he became the youngest photographer to create the lead image for the cover of Vanity Fair. He has shot Spike Lee, Billie Eilish, Zendaya, and more. In 2023, not content with just lensing fashion, Lemons launched a capsule collection with Sky High Farm Workwear titled Farm Boys Do It Better. Lemons’s fashion photography is both a portal and a mirror, that revels in fashion fantasies, and confronts who gets to live those dreams.

Nadia Lee Cohen

Photo: Nadia Lee Cohen

Cinematic and achingly glamorous, Nadia Lee Cohen has crafted an era-defining visual dialogue that has enraptured everyone from Kim Kardashian to Saint Laurent. Her work prods at notions of conventional beauty with her uncanny shots, creating fictionalized, fever-dreamy personas and tableaux. The Essex-born photographer is deeply inspired by nostalgic British and American cinema, as well as unexpected objects and memorabilia, like name tags or drive-thrus. As well as the aforementioned Kardashian, she’s photographed Rihanna, Lana Del Rey, Pamela Anderson, and Sophia Loren, and shot campaigns for Balenciaga, Gucci, and others. Her book Women is a new-era cult classic.

Jamie Hawkesworth

Photographed by Jamie Hawkesworth, Vogue, August 2018