Lemonade has never really been something I go out of my way for. It’s there, it’s fine, but it’s not something I think much about.
But photography has a way of shifting things.
Give me the right light, the right setting, and the right two women, and suddenly it stops being about the drink. It becomes about what’s happening around it, what the camera turns it into.
At that point, I’m not really interested in lemonade.
I’m watching it.
And that’s where it lands for me. With the right setup, it becomes less of a refreshment and more of my idea of a spectator sport. I love it!
Of course, that takes me in a different direction than what was intended. It started in the early 1980s at the University of Texas at Austin as a campus stunt. People walking around in public in their underwear, acting like nothing is unusual. It spread, became organized, and now sits on the calendar as a planned bit of public absurdity. That’s the idea behind it.
I shoot in the space between fashion, pornochic, and nude because it doesn’t hide what it is. The sexuality is not implied, and it’s not softened. It’s part of the structure of the photograph.
Sévérine brought that directly into my shoot. Her presence is openly sexual, controlled, and fully aware of itself. Nothing tentative about it. The makeup and styling by Blanche LeBeau push it further, not decorative, not secondary, but part of the same intent, shaping how that sexuality is presented and held in place.
That usually brings to mind something simple. Blankets, baskets, sunlight, maybe a quiet afternoon without much to it.
For a long time I’ve been drawn to the world of Weimar Berlin, and more recently I’ve started working through that fascination visually. Not as documentation, but as something constructed. A way of placing that atmosphere into new settings and seeing how it holds.
This exploration moves between my AI-generated work and my own photography, carrying the same ideas across both.
So I started wondering what happens when that same energy leaves the nightclub and moves outdoors.
The setting changes. The light changes. But the behavior doesn’t fully follow.
A picnic blanket replaces the dance floor. Champagne is still there. The formality of dress starts to slip. Jackets open, clothing loosens, and what began as something composed starts to move in another direction.
Not staged. Not announced. Just unfolding.
People settle into the space differently. Closer than expected. More comfortable than they should be. Conversations drift, attention shifts, and the moment becomes less about the setting and more about what’s happening within it.
That’s where these images come from.
Not a recreation, but a continuation. Taking that same sense of indulgence, tension, and quiet defiance and placing it somewhere it doesn’t quite belong. The permissiveness and decadence of the moment, where boundaries move.
This frame, pulled from a series of moments, becomes the introduction. Fragments of the same idea, happening across different spaces, connected by the same atmosphere.
This is just one direction it can go. More of my Weimar era concepts to follow.
More of my photography, from food to everything in between, is on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com.
For most of us, it brings up a familiar scene. A quiet garden restaurant, champagne in the morning, Eggs Benedict placed carefully on the table, everything composed and exactly where it belongs.
I started there.
A table set for two, light filtering through the garden, a setting that feels complete on its own.
But in my work, it rarely stays that way.
The structure holds just long enough to recognize it, and then it begins to shift. Not abruptly, not forced, just enough to change the way the scene is read.
That’s where this one goes.
More of my food photography, pornochic photo adventures, and everything in between on my website at https://www.secondfocus.com
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