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Vanity Fair Hires Its First Black Photographer For Cover Shoot With Viola Davis
By Thanussha Priyah, 15 Jul 2020
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Image by Dario Calmese for Vanity Fair
The 35-year-old magazine Vanity Fair has enlisted its first Black photographer, Dario Calmese, for its latest cover featuring Viola Davis.
The publication recently released images from the photoshoot and the cover story with Davis. In a letter by Editor-in-Chief Radhika Jones, she penned a message about systemic racism plaguing the publication industry and beyond.
Jones also shared that this was the magazine’s first cover shot by a Black photographer. “This is his first major magazine cover, and we celebrate him and honor his vision at this heightened moment in American history,” Jones wrote.
“[Vanity Fair] had a problem in the past with putting Black women on the covers. But that’s a lot of magazines, that’s a lot of beauty campaigns. There’s a real absence of dark-skinned Black women,” Davis, herself, addressed the matter in the cover story.
“When you couple that with what’s going on in our culture, and how they treat Black women, you have a double whammy. You are putting us in a complete cloak of invisibility,” the actress added.
Calmese described the photograph and concept as a “re-creation of the Louis Agassiz slave portraits taken in the 1800s—the back, the welts.”
“This image reclaims that narrative,” Calmese emphasized of the cover shot, and added that it intends to “[transmute] the white gaze on Black suffering into the Black gaze of grace, elegance, and beauty.”
Earlier this week, Vogue magazine faced backlash for featuring a cover of Simone Biles that was shot by Annie Leibovitz. Many expressed their disappointment of the magazine not hiring a Black photographer and the way the editing work had missed the mark in showcasing Biles in a flattering light.
Image by Dario Calmese for Vanity FairView this post on InstagramA post shared by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on
Viola Davis for V.F. July/August 2020. Photographs by Dario Calmese. The cover marks the first V.F. cover shot by a Black photographer. https://t.co/izJBKTFrt7 pic.twitter.com/SeUdZkQwoO
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) July 14, 2020
Image by Dario Calmese for Vanity FairView this post on InstagramA post shared by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on
Image by Dario Calmese for Vanity FairView this post on InstagramA post shared by Vanity Fair (@vanityfair) on
[via Peta Pixel, cover image by Dario Calmese for Vanity Fair]
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