Tyler Mitchell’s Black Utopia
Image Courtesy: Dazed
In Marietta, Georgia, a boy in the ninth grade decided to buy a Canon DSLR to take some pictures. He would start in the comfort of skateparks and eventually click his way into editorial shoots with magazines like Teen Vogue, i-D, Dazed, Office magazine, and The Fader. He would go on to do some music videos for Kevin Abstract and Brockhampton here and there. And as he snapped the first picture for Beyoncé’s Vogue cover photoshoot in 2018, he became the first Black photographer to do a cover shoot for Vogue at the age of 23.
Before this statue-worthy moment in American Vogue history, Tyler Mitchell videoed skateboarders. Afternoons in skateparks and the admiration of it led him to publish his first photography book El Paquete when visiting Havana, Cuba: a photography book highlighting the skate culture there. From this budding interest and raw talent, Mitchell went to New York University Tisch School of the Arts to study cinematography in film and television. Here, he would be taken under the wing of Deborah Willis, and with this tutorship, he grew his own.
Having worked with magazines such as i-D and Teen Vogue for a bit and having done music videos for artists like Brockhampton, he got his historical moment when he photographed Beyoncé in 2018. Since then, he has gone on to do editorial work for Vogue, Interview magazine, Vanity Fair, and other magazines. He has photographed cover shoots for Zendaya, Harry Styles, Steve Lacy, and America’s first female and African American vice president Kamala Harris. Some of his other editorial work includes photographing and filming high fashion designer campaigns such as JW Anderson, Marc Jacobs, Loewe, Comme des Garçons, and more recently, Louis Vuitton.
But his work isn’t limited to the fashion world. During this time, he has slowly developed his way of seeing the world and has showcased it since in his solo exhibitions. In 2019 he released his photography series I Can Make You Feel Good, an imagined black utopia set in nature using cityscape references. He explored this concept more in I Can Make You Feel Good Pt. 2 and I Can Make You Feel Good Pt. 3 –it was also made into a photography book, his second to date.
Georgia Hillside (Redlining)
Image Courtesy: Elephant Art
In an interview with NPR, Tyler Mitchell says, “There's a lot of in my work the black body searching for an idyllic space.” His work focuses on Black life by creating a visual atmosphere that emphasizes the self-reliance, joy, and willpower found within the Black community. Since gaining traction, his work has only proven this testament true. In his photography series Dreaming in Real Time (2021), Mitchell explores the cityscape of Atlanta. He embraces the natural landscape of Georgia with daisy-black eyes. Black men and women decorate the landscape in the way images of the past found themselves littered with white patrons. This collection provides commentary on the South’s history– ranging from subtle nods to outright truths. In the Georgia Hillside (Redlining) photograph, Black men, women, and children are seen on a green hill with a distinct red line running through it all as if to bubble them into their worlds. This little red line references the systemic practice of the government segregating neighborhoods where large black communities resided in. This practice negatively impacted these communities as they were deemed hazardous, directly resulting in a lack of public funding to take care of those that lived within them. Georgia Hillside (Redlining), amongst the many other images in this collection, manages to make an impactful commentary with a simple composition that always holds more weight than it presents itself with. Since this exhibition, he has created Black Melancholia, Cultural Turns, Chrysalis, and Frieze Masters Commission 2022.
Tyler Mitchell continues to unearth this new visual earth of his through idyllic black eyes. With every composed image, he has given life to a version of the black experience that continues to expand the more he explores it. The more space he has taken up in making this immersive world of his, it has opened the door to opportunities and recognition of black photographers like himself. With a simple shutter, a dial or two on the exposure, and shuffling a model here and there, a boy from Marietta, Georgia, continues to accomplish more than one could ever imagine.
Strike Out,
Alyssa Quarrie
Boca Raton
Alyssa Quarrie is a Content Writer for Strike Magazine Boca. When she’s not losing herself in another book, she’s working out with friends, looking for flights, and thrifting her wallet away. You can reach her at alyssaquarrie@gmail.com
