Tyler Mitchell was just 23 years old when he was invited to do a photo shoot with Beyoncé for American Vogue magazine’s September 2018 issue. In one of the two covers, she wears barely any makeup, balances a wreath of colorful flowers on her head, and smolders toward the camera. In the other photo, she stands outdoors wearing a tiered Alexander McQueen dress with Pan-African lace, holding the white material up above her natural braided hair. There’s a raw beauty to both, shining an unusually intimate light on the almost superhuman pop star. But that wasn’t the only notable thing about the photo. Mitchell made history as the first African American photographer to shoot the cover of Vogue.
A few months later, Nadine Ijweah photographed singer Dua Lipa in a Gucci dress for Edward Enninful’s British Vogue January 2019 issue, making her the first black person to achieve a similar milestone. became a woman. Both covers were widely hailed as groundbreaking moments, but Mitchell soon asked awkward questions of media gatekeepers. If it had been up to me, it would have happened sooner,” he said by phone from New York.
Model Seashell Coker, photographed by Nadine Ijewere for Italian Vogue, 2017. Photo: Nadine Ijewere
Mitchell and Eyewear are among 15 photographers featured in The New Black Vanguard, a book edited by American art critic Antwone Sargent that depicts a new generation of photographers challenging stereotypes. There are two of them. For hundreds of years, images of black bodies as sexual, aggressive, brutal, and bestial have entered society’s bloodstream. As Sargent points out, it matters who becomes the image maker and who has the power to decide how the community is represented and perceived.
Many of these photographers forged partnerships with brands without waiting for an Old Guard title to give them approval.
These photographers are ushering in a new aesthetic in fashion and art and are currently some of the most sought-after photographers in the industry. Campbell Addy, who runs the London-based magazine Niijournal and has her own casting agency, had her work recently featured in the Get Up, Stand Up Now exhibition in London. Meanwhile, Dana Scruggs’ plus-size fashion campaign for erotica has created a buzz on the New York subway. Sargent includes a selection of names from around the world, from Sheffield-based Ruth Ossai to Stephen Tayo, who quickly rose to fame for his depictions of life in Lagos, to Bronx-born Renel Medrano. Masu.
Adaline in Barrettes, 2018, by Michaela Carter. Photo: Micaiah Carter
It’s easy to point to magazine covers as a sign of changing times, but many of these photographers didn’t wait for traditional titles to be approved and instead forged partnerships with brands like Nike, Apple, and Tiffany & Co. Mitchell says: “Almost all” of his connections in the industry have come through social media. Platforms like Instagram have helped democratize the creative industries.
When Ethiopian-American photographer Awol Elizuk photographed Beyoncé showing off her pregnant belly in front of a wall of flowers in 2017, a series of Botticelli-like images were created without any traditional media outlets. It was only published on her Instagram account. The birth announcement became the most-liked image on the site that year. “I’m trying to create a new language,” Elizuk explains in the book, “Black Art as Universal.”
Untitled (Twins II) by Tyler Mitchell, New York, 2017, first published in Dazed. Photo: Tyler Mitchell
Mitchell originally picked up a camera to make skateboarding movies, and then branched out into music videos. By the fall of 2017, with a degree in film and television from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, he decided photography was his calling and bought a one-way ticket from Atlanta to London, where he I almost tried too hard.”Meeting with every magazine and agency under the sun. ”
When you grow up, you’re taught that you have to work three times as hard. I love creating a world free from that pressure.
All of Mitchell’s work is personal in some way, starting with early photo essays such as “I’m Doing Pretty Hood in My Pink Polo,” a series of photographs taken in Flatbush, Brooklyn. It portrays black men as vulnerable and free. Mitchell cited his predecessors, such as Kerry James Marshall, who “reimagined the Chicago project as a green and vibrant place; even Frederick Douglass. [a key 19th-century activist, social reformer and abolitionist] He knew how important it was for Black people to create and imagine their own images. ”
The colorful backdrops and dreamlike lighting of Mitchell’s cinematography create a fantastical world for Black people to inhabit. “When you’re here [black] “Growing up, you’re taught that you have to work three times as hard to get the same results as white people,” he says. “You know, there are different ways this is drilled into our psyche. In American universities, we’re told, ‘Look left, look right. One of you is going to go to prison.’ Masu. I love creating a world free from that pressure. ”
Untitled (New Royals II), Miami, 2018, by Tyler Mitchell. Photo: Tyler Mitchell
The main objective is not to respond to the white gaze, but to subvert it. “We’re paving the way so others don’t have to be squeezed into the categories they used to be,” says Brooklyn-based photographer Mikaiah Carter. Early in his career, he says, the jobs offered to black men tended to focus on city life, but he wasn’t necessarily interested in it. This idea changed when he started taking portraits of people and listening to their stories for local newspapers. Since then, he’s worked for magazines such as Wonderland and Fader, as well as clients such as Nike, but says his style is more influenced by his family’s albums than the world of fashion or art. “My father used to shoot guns in the military when he lived overseas in Germany, Spain and Vietnam,” he says. “I also look at photos of my grandparents from the 1940s. Everything was taken with a specific intention, and I try to express that in my work.”
perhaps [my work] Do something to dismantle hyper-masculine ideas of what men should be in art.
But it was a focus on his community that ultimately helped him find his place. “No matter what I do, my skin color defines me, but at the same time I want to show my own perspective and my world.” With dozens of clips and accessories The image of singer Adeline’s braided hair adorned is instantly recognizable to any child of the black diaspora who sat for hours between the legs of her mother, who made similarly intricate decorations.
Untitled Heads by Awol Elizuk, 2013, a portrait of a childhood friend published in Vice magazine. Photo: Awol Elizuk
South African photographer Jamal Nxedlana also opposes stereotypes about black identity. His portraits of Johannesburg’s cool kids pop with their use of color and native, natural hairstyles. His gender fluid model contorts the body in surprising ways. “There’s a lot of frustration in South Africa right now,” he says. “It’s a very violent society. I think it’s a result of our past that stems from toxic masculinity. So I think [my work] He’s doing something that dismantles the hyper-masculine idea of what men should be in art. ” In one image shot and styled by Nexedrana, a man stands wearing a yellow tailored jacket, which represents convention and formality. “Other symbols were then used in fashion, such as brooches and lace gloves, to subvert and challenge notions of black masculinity,” he says.
After a short stint in London and an internship at Dazed magazine, Nexedlana returned to South Africa in 2011. His income was too low to qualify for a work visa. However, he was becoming interested in subcultures. He knew about the Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers, but couldn’t think of anyone documenting South African sects like the Izikotan or the ‘Zulu’ of KwaZulu-Natal. Pants of the same cut. In 2015, he launched Bubblegum Club, a youth culture platform. “It made unconventional voices and ourselves visible,” he says.
Johannesburg, 2017, by Jamal Nexedlana. Photo: Jamal Nexedrana
Similarly, Nadine Ijewere describes her work as a celebration of the beauty of her mixed Jamaican and Nigerian heritage. “When I looked at fashion, I never felt like I could relate to it. In college, I started photographing friends from different backgrounds. When I photographed people of color, I want to highlight their beauty and not stereotype them as angry, wild, exotic, or “other.” ” This same theme runs through Awol Elizuk’s series Untitled Heads (2013), where he profiles the hairstyles of his childhood friends from the Bronx. Sargent wrote of these men, “In his frame, their lives mattered.”
Thankfully, the gates that were once closed to these photographers are finally being forced open. “I never thought I would be doing a Vogue shoot, let alone the cover,” Ijewere says. “I just can’t believe that happened.”
All images are from Antoine Sargent’s The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art And Fashion, published by Aperture on October 31st, £40. To order for £35.20, visit guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.
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