black photographers
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It's Been the Longest Week Ever…So Let's Spend Time With Our Favorite Beyoncé-Clad Boomers
To say this week has been both anxiety-ridden and anticlimactic would be an understatement. After weeks of bracing ourselves for exactly the protracted outcome we have been painfully enduring since Tuesday, even with triumph likely in sight, what’s still painful is the confirmation that, in spite of all its well-meaning platitudes, promises, and performative black…
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Triple Threat: Beyoncé's Newest Vogue Covers Once Again Make History—This Time, With a 21-Year-Old Black Woman
There’s B’Day, and then, there’s Bey Week—which is a bit like Shark Week, but with much more buzz. Beyoncé kicked off the week building the buzz about her latest (and already sold out) Ivy Park drop with Adidas—her second since the label’s relaunch—and is ending it with the debut of three covers of British Vogue’s…
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Deana Lawson Is the 1st Photographer to Win the Guggenheim's Hugo Boss Prize
She was a member of the 2018 class of The Root 100, and now, photographer Deana Lawson is the winner of the Hugo Boss Prize 2020, the biennial award made possible by the luxury fashion label and administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation “to recognize significant achievement in contemporary art,” according to a release.…
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All Black Everything: Zendaya Leverages the Power of Black Creatives for InStyle's September Cover
Don’t just talk about it; be about it. That’s the subtext of Zendaya’s stunning September 2020 cover story for InStyle, creative-directed by Zendaya’s longtime stylist Law Roach (a 2019 Root 100 honoree) and photographed by Ahmad Barber and Donte Maurice of AB+DM Studio, who also joined forces with Roach to capture Kerry Washington in a…
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Big Beauty Tuesday: When It Comes to Magazine Covers, What's the Line Between Art and Insult?
By now, you’ve likely seen them, heard about them, and maybe even participated in the conversation about two of August’s most striking—and controversial—magazine covers: Simone Biles photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the cover of Vogue and Viola Davis atop Vanity Fair, photographed by Dario Calmese—remarkably the first Black photographer to shoot a cover for the…
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Cover Stories: The #VogueChallenge Is a Black Beauty Revolution for the Fashion World
In a world currently consumed with black trauma (and copious amount of white guilt, in response), black beauty may feel like a luxury we can’t currently afford as the moment demands we keep our eye on what feels like an ever-moving goalpost. Nevertheless, beauty is not only necessary to black life, but it is a…
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Everything Is Love: Meet the 20-Year-Old Photographer Who Immortalized His Grandparents in Ivy Park
Remember January 2020, when massive orange boxes full of Beyoncé’s relaunched Adidas x Ivy Park collection arrived in homes across Hollywood, inspiring impromptu celebrity photoshoots, immense envy, and a few imitators? Five months later, that major fashion moment feels worlds away as we shelter in place, our homes becoming the only massive—or minuscule—boxes consuming us,…
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TGU50: Image
The category is: Image. We often say “representation matters,” but few truly take the time to investigate and appreciate those who do who the work of making that representation possible, gatekeepers be damned. In fact, just like Madam C.J. Walker, the legendary subject of Netflix’s highly anticipated Self Made (premiering March 20), our ten inaugural…
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It's Official: Beyoncé Belongs in the Smithsonian
Last year, Beyoncé helped make history when she approved Tyler Mitchell to photograph her for the cover of the September 2018 issue of American Vogue, making the then-23-year-old the first black photographer—and one of the youngest—to shoot the cover of the world’s best-known fashion magazine in its 126-year history. In the year since, that barrier-breaking…
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'No More Music': Rihanna Drops New Fenty, Photographs Her Own Campaign, and Still Finds Time to Troll Us
Rihanna is nothing if not fashionably late. And you will deal. That’s the overriding message from the entertainer-turned-beauty-and-fashion mogul; as fans continue to await new music, she strolled into her Tuesday night pop-up party at The Webster in New York City two hours late, according to W magazine (three, according to Page Six). But that’s…