OPINION
US rapper Megan Thee Stallion appeared on the shoot Harper's Bazaar this month, further chronicling her rise to stardom, but the shoot has reignited the debate of how Black people are represented in fashion.
that the rapper was made to look "bland" and "washed out". Much of the criticism was directed at how Thee Stallion's skin tone was captured. "If you can’t capture darkskinned women just say that," one Instagram user . With another Instagram user : "photographer didn’t even know how to capture Megan’s skin correctly..."
Such criticism isn't new for mainstream magazines, who have previously been called out for how they photograph Black women.
In July 2020 Vogue magazine came under attack for the way they portrayed star gymnast Simone Biles in their photoshoot, with improper lighting being blamed for Biles's skin tone. Then in January 2020, US Vice President Kamala Harris's photoshoot in the same magazine was seen as ''. And now Harper's Bazaar are facing over this latest cover.
However, it's worth noting that the Harper's Bazaar photographer, Collier Schorr, has said that she and the rapper collaborated on the shoot.
“A most remarkable experience making pictures with Megan Thee Stallion who discussed each picture and edited afterwards with me,” Collier Schorr wrote on Instagram. Since the controversy about the shoot, the photographer has made her Instagram account private.
The debate remains about how Black people are portrayed in magazine shoots.
After Simone Biles photoshoot came out, the national picture editor at The New York Times tweeted: "I adore Simone Biles and am thrilled she’s on this cover... but I hate these photos. I hate the toning, I hate how predictable they are, I hate the social crop here (wtf?) and I super hate that Vogue couldn’t be bothered to hire a Black photographer."
In fact, it was only in 2018 that Vogue hired its to do a cover shoot in its 126 year history.
Tyler Mitchell was the photographer hired to shoot Beyoncé for the cover. The photographer spoke of how he uses his photography to "." And it showed. His cover shoot was held to wide acclaim.
However, some were quick to point out the only reason a Black photographer was even chosen to do the photoshoot was because Beyoncé was in charge of the shoot and herself.
Mitchell then went on to photograph Zendaya for Vogue in 2019.
It's not just a case of hiring more Black photographers for these shoots. According to some academics the technology when photographing subjects is itself those with darker skin tones.
In one , Professor Lorna Roth stated: "Problems for the African-American community, for example, have included reproduction of facial images without details, lighting challenges, and ashen-looking facial skin colours contrasted strikingly with the whites of eyes and teeth."
Lighting is also a major issue. Director Ava DuVernay said in an : "A Black woman is walking into a dark room. That's not gonna fly. Turn a light on. Right? And we'll say, 'No. There's natural light coming through the window and how do we shoot that so it's just as beautiful as if all the lights are on?' Or more beautiful. So those are the kinds of conversations [we have] and I just think it's about really examining and pushing ourselves to go beyond the norms of how you light Black folks, which is 'turn on all the lights and hope it works.'"
"I just think it's about really examining and pushing ourselves to go beyond the norms of how you light Black folks," Ava DuVernay.
However many of these technological issues can be corrected, and technology itself has improved immensely in recent years, so why do such problems exist?
It isn't clear how much of a say Megan Thee Stallion had for her Harper's Bazaar cover shoot aside from the photographer's comments about collaborating with her. Megan herself has not commented about the controversy so we may well never know.
However, there is a growing realisation that darker skin tones need to be photographed in ways that make them stand out rather than washing them out. And who better to photograph people with darker skin, than those who specialise in it.
There are countless Black and POC photographers, stylists, editors, lighting technicians, who shouldn't need to wait for powerful people like Beyoncé to give them a chance to showcase their talent. So the onus is on the magazine industry itself who needs to learn from controversies like this and figure out ways to make sure it doesn't happen again. The best place to start of course, is by hiring diverse talent. By diversifying from within can change really occur.
As photographer Tyler Mitchell : "There was a ladder for the people who came before me, and there’s a ladder now—it’s just a new ladder,” says Mitchell. “I want to open the eyes of the kids younger than me, show them that they can do this too."
