--- title: Meet the First Black Photographer to Shoot a 'Vogue' Cover, a 23-Year-Old Hand-Picked by Beyoncé description: For the September issue of Vogue, Beyonce hand-picked 23-year-old Tyler Mitchell to shoot her cover image. authors: - name: Julia Glum role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/julia-glum/ bio: Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. She also writes Dollar Scholar, a weekly newsletter that teaches young adults how to navigate the messy world of money. education: University of Florida at_money_since: 2018 articles: 453 covers: - Lifestyle - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - Newsweek - International Business Times - CBS News - Good Morning America - WUSA9 - Pix 11 - The New York Times - Mashable - The Washington Post - CNBC - Politico social: - https://x.com/superjulia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-glum published: '2018-08-06T15:10:32.000Z' modified: '2024-04-17T10:47:42.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - celebrity word_count: 633 canonical: https://money.com/tyler-mitchell-beyonce-vogue-september-cover/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Vogue Beyoncé cover](https://img.money.com/2018/08/180806-vogue-beyonce-cover.jpg) *Vogue* just made history — with Beyoncé's help, of course. For the first time in its 126 years on newsstands, the cover was shot by a black photographer, a New York-based artist named Tyler Mitchell. Oh, and did we mention he's only 23? Queen Bey chose Mitchell specifically for the gig. [The *Huffington Post* reported](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/beyonce-vogue-september-issue_us_5b5f4e19e4b0b15aba9b694c?8dn) last month that Beyoncé was given "unprecedented control" over the September 2018 issue of *Vogue*, which [may](https://wwd.com/business-news/media/anna-wintour-vogue-exit-rumors-daughter-bee-shaffer-wedding-1202750067/) or [may not be](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-anna-wintour/anna-wintour-to-stay-indefinitely-at-vogue-quashing-exit-rumors-idUSKBN1KM37S) Anna Wintour's final issue before retirement. Wintour usually makes all cover decisions, but this month Beyoncé was in charge. "Until there is a mosaic of perspectives coming from different ethnicities behind the lens, we will continue to have a narrow approach and view of what the world actually looks like. That is why I wanted to work with this brilliant 23-year-old photographer Tyler Mitchell," Beyoncé [writes in the magazine](https://www.vogue.com/article/beyonce-september-issue-2018?mbid=social_twitter). Beyoncé says she wants to use her influence to open doors for talented young people just like legendary singers Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and others did for her decades ago. She also notes that when she first started out two decades ago, people told her it was hard for her to appear on magazine covers because "black people did not sell" — an obvious myth. "It’s important to me that I help open doors for younger artists. There are so many cultural and societal barriers to entry that I like to do what I can to level the playing field, to present a different point of view for people who may feel like their voices don’t matter," she adds. "If people in powerful positions continue to hire and cast only people who look like them, sound like them, come from the same neighborhoods they grew up in, they will never have a greater understanding of experiences different from their own." Mitchell may be young, but he's no newcomer to the photo scene. [His website says](https://www.tylermitchell.co/about/) he started out filming skate videos and shooting youth culture in Atlanta before moving to New York, where he now does projects for brands like *Teen Vogue*, *FADER* and Marc Jacobs. A recent graduate of New York University, Mitchell has about 65,000 [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/tylersphotos/?hl=en) followers and released a book of photos taken on a 2015 trip to Havana, Cuba. “I depict black people and people of color in a really real and pure way,” he [told the *New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/style/tyler-mitchell-photographer.html) last year. “There is an honest gaze to my photos.” Mitchell, who prefers to shoot on film, set Beyoncé in a Rebel Rebel floral headpiece and Gucci dress for the *Vogue* cover. Like her photographer, Beyoncé is a trailblazer: Back in [2015](https://www.vogue.com/projects/13293183/beyonce-september-2015-cover/), she became the [third black woman](https://time.com/3995965/beyonce-vogue-september-issue/) ever to appear on the cover of a September *Vogue*. This past April, she became the first black woman to headline the music festival Coachella. She's the [highest-paid](https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8039637/beyonce-music-industry-highest-paid-woman) woman in music, has had at least [six albums](https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/7350372/beyonce-earns-sixth-no-1-album-on-billboard-200-chart-with-lemonade) debut at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and [once won](https://www.grammy.com/grammys/news/adele-michael-jackson-whos-won-most-grammys-night) six Grammy Awards in one night. Mitchell didn't return Money's requests for comment, but he previously [told Lomography](https://www.lomography.com/magazine/321914-the-new-generation-an-interview-with-tyler-mitchell) he's surprised when people call him a fashion photographer — he simply uses clothes to tell stories through images. Mitchell has photographed rapper Jaden Smith, actress Amandla Stenberg and activist Emma Gonzalez, among others, so he probably wasn't nervous about being singled out by Beyoncé. In fact, he told Lomography — somewhat presciently — that there's "absolutely nothing" different about working with stars. "My hands get clammier sometimes because they’re really cool people," he added. "I think I’m done with this idea of 'celebrity' though. Sometimes it works because of who’s in the photo, but I want you paying attention to the photo itself." Check out Mitchell's website [here](https://www.tylermitchell.co/) and his Beyoncé gallery [here](https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/beyonce-tyler-mitchell-september-vogue-issue-photos#1). ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/tyler-mitchell-beyonce-vogue-september-cover/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Art and Culture", "item": "https://money.com/art-and-culture/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Meet the First Black Photographer to Shoot a 'Vogue' Cover, a 23-Year-Old Hand-Picked by Beyoncé" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/tyler-mitchell-beyonce-vogue-september-cover/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/tyler-mitchell-beyonce-vogue-september-cover/", "name": "Meet the First Black Photographer to Shoot a 'Vogue' Cover, a 23-Year-Old Hand-Picked by Beyoncé", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2018-08-06T15:10:32.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/tyler-mitchell-beyonce-vogue-september-cover/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/tyler-mitchell-beyonce-vogue-september-cover/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-17T10:47:42.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Meet the First Black Photographer to Shoot a 'Vogue' Cover, a 23-Year-Old Hand-Picked by Beyoncé", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2018/08/180806-vogue-beyonce-cover.jpg", "width": 2800, "height": 1867, "caption": "180806-vogue-beyonce-cover" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Julia Glum", "url": "https://money.com/author/julia-glum/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/julia-glum/#author", "description": "Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. 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