Quil Lemons is a New York-based photographer with a distinct visual language that interrogates ideas around masculinity, family, queerness, race, and beauty. His work has been featured in publications like the New York Times, Variety, and Vogue, and in 2021 he became the youngest person to photograph the cover of Vanity Fair. Later that same year, we commissioned Quil to produce some of his most personal work to date. The series, titled “6, 7” documents a block party in his hometown of Philadelphia in honor of his grandmother’s 67th birthday. By shifting the lens onto his own community, we wanted Quil to capture the essence of what it means to be Black in America, and the changing landscape of a nation in flux.
Stories with Quil Lemons