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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Photographer Micaiah Carter is not yet 30 years old, but he's carved his own lane in fashion and editorial photography. Bright colors, interesting angles, Black subjects who exude grace and attitude. Now a new book from Carter combines family photos with a traditional monograph. The collection titled What's My Name intersperses archival photos from Carter's own family going back to the '50s, woven amidst the artist's professional work.

Juxtaposed against Zendaya, The Weeknd, LaKeith Stanfield, and Solange are images of unnamed people and depictions of childhood that go beyond commercial and magazine shoots. In the introduction, the photographer writes, "My work focuses on Blackness in America, what it means to be American, to be America, and to dream. Each photo represents a moment within this new American dream." Micaiah Carter, welcome to All Of It.

Micaiah Carter: I'm so happy to be here.

Alison Stewart: On the back of the book is a photo. It's one of those fantastic square 1960s, early '70s-ish polaroids with the white frame around it and it says, "What's My Name," on top. It's a very sweet picture of a girl, a woman at Christmas time, hugging a man. That's the back. On the front is Alton from 2016. It's a profile of a young Black teenager. He's got a sequined tank top on, he's holding up a basketball. There seems to be, it's either glitter or it's something magical and shiny coming down from the sky. Tell me about why these two images for the front and the back of this.

Micaiah Carter: Well, I think the first image on the front was a very pivotal time for me being in New York. I was still in college when I took that photo, and it was really special to me. It showed me in a way that I was advancing in my photography because going from-- I'm from Victorville, California normally. That's where I'm from and born and raised, and when I came out to New York, it was a big culture shock for me because Victorville is a really smaller city.

I was trying to find my niche and find my style. My friend Alton, who his career has been amazing over the past couple of years, we did a shoot that was inspired by my dad and those photos. That started the whole process of me finding my voice, using inspiration from the family album, the '70s, and implementing that. That photo just feels very magical and special to me and just in my style. Then the back photo was a photo my dad took at a Christmas party.

He's not in the photo, but I just really love the writing that he had on it, "What's My Name." He used to say that to me all the time growing up. Like, "What's your name, young man?" and I would say my name, just as a point of reference and I think a point of finding my own identity. I think both those photos really speak to each other in different ways.

Alison Stewart: What do you think your father was getting at when he was saying, "What's your name, young man?"

Micaiah Carter: I feel like it was a sense of identity and pride in yourself and your own uniqueness of your name and realizing not only your first name but your last name of how your legacy has been passed on to you. I think that's what he was getting at when he said those things.

Alison Stewart: Who is the keeper of the family photos in your family?

Micaiah Carter: Well, it was my dad at first, but since he passed, I think that came down to me. What I did is I got everything digitized, all the VHS tapes. He recorded so much on VHS-C and other types of mediums like that when I was growing up. He had some 8mm film as well. I think it's me now, but it's scattered though. My grandmother used to be the person that would sit on the porch and go through the family album and give oral history about everyone. I think it just passed down through generations, and now I'm able to do it just in a different way digitally.

Alison Stewart: Were you a kid who wanted to go through the family photo albums or is that something that came later in life?

Micaiah Carter: No, I was obsessed because I was the baby baby of the family. I'm the youngest one of my parents and my parents are a lot older. My dad was 72. My mom is 67. It was really pivotal for me to understand where I came from, to know what my family looked like, to know these pictures, to know these videos of family reunions. Even seeing my brothers when I was born back to now is a really interesting experience and especially gives me context of where I come from because I don't really have that much family in Victorville when I was growing up.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Micaiah Carter. The name of his new book, his monograph is Micaiah Carter: What's My Name. Why did you decide to release a monograph at this point?

Micaiah Carter: Well, Prestel reached out to me about it. I wasn't really planning to do a monograph, but when I looked back at everything and I had my professor from college, Sarah Hasted, help me with editing, it was very heartwarming to see how much work that I've actually done in the past 10 years. When I put everything together, I was like, "Wow, we actually have a substantial book here." It still doesn't feel real to me that I have something with my name on it, with my family names on it, and a family album that's out in the world for people to also enjoy.

Alison Stewart: Did you have a clear idea of once you realize, "Okay, I do have this body of work," did you have a clear idea of the story you wanted to tell, the form you wanted it in?

Micaiah Carter: Not at first. I think it took a lot of work. Once I started to piece together the family photos with my own photos and how those subsequently matched each other, I think that's when I started to see the magic happening. That's when I went into a deep dive of finding out that subconsciously, a lot of these photos that I looked at as a kid I take some of those same qualities in my own photos of today, and just the care and thought about how I see people no matter what race.

I think the love and the honesty is within both of those types of family albums in my own photographs. It took a while, but I think once I got there, it really made sense to me of where I wanted the direction to go.

Alison Stewart: You write in the introduction when making this book, "I noticed how much my work has been inspired by my family's photography archive." There are great photos; youth soccer teams, there are wedding photos, photos of men in military uniforms. When did you really-- [unintelligible 00:07:29]. What's an example of a photo in the book, a family photo, that you know and you know now inspired one of your commercial works, one of your pieces, your editorial pieces?

Micaiah Carter: Oh, I feel like there's two. I feel like the first one, it's in the first of the book, there's three men standing on the checkered floor. That was my dad in Vietnam. He used to go to studios out there with his friends and take photos. I think that photo, and there's another photo in there that is similar to that, really inspired me because the sense of style, the sense of pride that came during the Black Power movement, it stood out more to me because they were in a foreign country doing that.

Especially what was going on in America and civil rights coming back to that and having to move forward, I thought that was so powerful. Just the essence, they were so cool. It was so effortlessly cool. Everyone had a unique style. I think some of those same elements inspired me today and inspired the style in general. Then there's also another photo of me in the book. I was obsessed with Power Rangers as a kid, and I used to always want to dress up as the Blue Ranger.

When I found the photos that matched this story that I did that was basically about that, I thought it was such a coincidence that it was styled the same way as the boy that I was styled as. Those are two really cool things that I noticed that are parallel to each other.

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:08:58] you wearing that. You've mentioned style. People were so fly back then.

Micaiah Carter: Yes. It was so different. It was so cool.

Alison Stewart: Yes. When you look at those-- when you look at the style, and it's not fashion necessarily, it's style. Do you have any thoughts on why you think that was your family and the people that they surrounded themselves with? Was it the time? Was it the emergence of Black folk feeling beautiful and wanting to show and say that out loud?

Micaiah Carter: I feel like it's a mix of things. I feel like the time and the Black is Beautiful, Black Power movement was a big impact on how people wanted to showcase their style. Leaving the '60s from the pressed hair and going into wearing the natural afro I think was a big shift. Even the way that music changed from the '60s to the '70s I think was a big influence about how people expressed themselves. Hearing Earth, Wind & Fire, hearing Marvin Gaye, and how they exuded their songs, I think people wanted to exude that in their own personal style day to day.

Thinking back to the time, that's how you expressed yourself. That's how you showed the world who you were. There wasn't Instagram or any type of social media where you can create something out of thin air. You really had to live it and find what worked for you. It's crazy because I still can't believe. I'm like, "I wish my dad had those clothes that he had." Because I'm just like, "I don't know where that you could even find stuff like that anymore." It's so perfect. Everything was fitted perfectly. Tailors, everyone took a lot of pride into how they looked.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Micaiah Carter, photographer. The name of his monograph is Micaiah Carter: What's My Name. It is this fantastic mix of family photos with a lot of his editorial work. There's a photo you have of Kehinde Wiley, the artist, and he's in this patterned blazer. That's from 2018. On the opposite page is a faded family photo from the '70s. The man is in a dashiki and the woman is in this printed dress, the same color palette as Kehinde Wiley's coat.

When you started looking at these connections, what attracted you? Did you think about color? Did you think about composition when you decided to make these pairings? What was the criteria for the pairings?

Micaiah Carter: I honestly think it was mostly color and just gestures I think that I noticed that were similar and just the palettes of things. Different things that I feel like my dad was attracted to photograph back then are the same type of things that I'm attracted to in my photographs as well. I think those parallels are things that I realized that, "Oh, this actually matches effortlessly with this photo right here. How do they pair together and what story do they tell?" Not just for me, but anyone else looking at it, what it tells for them.

That's something I also notice about the book is shared experiences in Black America through the years that we all have, like we all have a similar painting or photo or quilt that's in our home that's crossed through all of America. When I was making the book and sharing it with my friend, some of it he was, "Yes, I had a blanket like that when I was a kid," or "My parents did something similar to that in the '70s." It was really cool to see those connections and just how generational it goes on and still inspires and still is in remembrance to the youth and to the culture today.

Alison Stewart: The family photos, some of them are faded a bit, some of them have aged a bit. You keep them in their original scale. Why did you want to keep them in their original form and in the original fade? Obviously, with technology, you could have pumped them up, you could have color-corrected.

Micaiah Carter: I wanted it to feel authentic even with the sizing of certain things. There's some photos in there-- my dad used to make collages of a lot of the photos that he took. I wanted people to experience it like they're looking at the photo album or a piece of it. Not necessarily something that's super glossy because I feel like my work does that. I wanted to have that contrast in between those two to really give the past in the past and leave it how photos fade, which I think is beautiful, honestly, because it shows time compared to my photos, which is a little bit more glossy, a little bit more modern. Seeing that comparison I think was really interesting and beautiful.

Alison Stewart: Tracee Ellis Ross provides the forward and she writes of your work, "The subject is always clear in the frame, never objectified and always honored. Even if the subject is a hairline or eyebrows, you know what is sacred." When you are photographing someone, how do you decide where you're going to focus? What are you looking for? What are you looking for in your framing?

Micaiah Carter: I think I'm looking for two things. I'm looking to see them and their honest selves, but I'm also looking to push the envelope a little bit and make it feel different. I think my biggest concern on set is to make sure that the people that I'm photographing feel comfortable and they feel like themselves, but also, I really want to elevate them at the same time because I think there's so many different facets and sides to people that they don't even know that they have. Really tapping into those different things I try to do. The people that I photograph, I'm already inspired by. I think me being inspired, them being vulnerable, having that honest connection there really creates magic.

Alison Stewart: There's a photo of yours that is probably the internet's most popular. It's certainly my favorite. Adeline in Barrettes, 2018. It shows the back of the head of the artist Adi Oasis and her hair. She's got all of the little plastic barrettes that we wore as little girls, and there must be 20 of them in her hair going up and down. There's bows, butterflies, and horses. Why do you think this picture has exploded in the way it has?

Micaiah Carter: I feel like it has nostalgia and it gives a remembrance of as a little girl, the girls getting their hair done for school, getting their hair done for church. Those little barrettes with the little twist-ups I think is just very nostalgic and just reminds you of that feeling. Also, the colors too. That photo was so interesting because that was taken at Afropunk and it was an off-the-wall type of photo. It wasn't something that I even thought that would blow up like that.

I released it a year later than I photographed it because I was shooting portraits for Vogue. I think looking at it now, I'm really happy that I took that chance to have her turn around and take the back of that. Also, I think the background of that really gives that childhood type of nostalgia that a lot of people are still searching back to in a way.

Alison Stewart: I'm not going to lie. I'll tell you the truth. I have a color Xerox of this picture because I love it so much in my bathroom till I can get a real one. [chuckles] It's so beautiful. My guest is Micaiah Carter, the photographer. The name of his monogram is Micaiah Carter: What's My Name. When did you first pick up a camera?

Micaiah Carter: I would say the very first time I was probably six or seven. When I bought my first camera, I was about 14, 15. I used to have this phone business on eBay, where I would buy old phones, old sidekicks and clean them up and then resell them. I did enough where I was able to buy my first DSLR and I used to photograph my friends a lot. I was looking at my old Facebook yesterday and it was so funny because I used to upload all the photos. I think that was the nature back then when people had Facebook.

There wasn't a sort of curation. It was just like, "Here's 80 images that I took. I don't care if they're embarrassing to people, but this is what I shot." From there, I just kept on shooting, kept on connecting with people in my own community. Then I ended up working at the Daily Press, which is a local newspaper here in Victorville. That's when I knew that I really want to do something with photography. I'm able to have a voice and not speak so much. I think that's what attracted me to photography.

Alison Stewart: How did Victorville shape you as a photographer?

Micaiah Carter: I think Victorville is such an interesting city. Just as far as all the elements that are here. There's the desert, there's suburban communities that feel like it's down-- in the empire, in LA. There's also aspects of this city that feels like it's out in the country with the different lakes and stuff that we have here. I think a lot of those elements of texture, of color, of the sunsets out here are incredible.

I think that mundane life also inspired me to see those little things and magnify them as well. I think being from Victorville taught me to appreciate the slower parts of life and to appreciate the things that people might not always appreciate living in a big city.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting, in your acknowledgments, there's a long list and the first thanks is Victorville, California, and then the last is Brooklyn, New York. When did you move to Brooklyn? Why did you decide on Brooklyn?

Micaiah Carter: Well, when I moved to Brooklyn-- I first moved from Victorville, California to New York for school, and I went to Parsons. I got a scholarship to go there. I was living in Manhattan for about two years in 2013, and then I decided to move to Brooklyn just to live on my own and have my own room versus the dorms. Brooklyn just really shaped me in a way I think.

I was living in Bed-Stuy, and I've never been in a community that was so centered around Blackness and walking around seeing murals of icons like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, the Notorious B.I.G., and the history that were in those streets I think really inspired me. Even with that Alton photo, Alton in Brooklyn, I think Brooklyn really shaped the way that I viewed my adult self. Coming from Victorville being a bit more sheltered to being heart open to the world, I think it really gave me context of how to be a people person and how to enjoy different types of culture because in Victorville there wasn't the diaspora of Black people in Victorville.

I loved that I was able to see Africans, Caribbean people, Native Americans, all in one bubble, and the different little cracks and crevices of those different communities from the food places to even little bars and restaurants. I think it really opened my eyes up a lot.

Alison Stewart: The person that you thank, your book ended by places, but the first person you thank is Sarah. Is it Hasted is how you say her name?

Micaiah Carter: Yes.

Alison Stewart: She's the gallery owner and the curator. How did she help you in this project?

Micaiah Carter: She was my professor for my thesis year in college, and she really helped me understand the scope of my work as a whole and as a theme. Because I used to love just taking pictures to take pictures and to make them beautiful, but I never had real meaning to my photos until I had her class and I was looking through the family album and trying to make a connection between where I fit in this whole spectrum of photography through my own family but through also the history of photography.

She really helped me with that. When this book came about, because it's spanning so much of my work over the last 10 years, I thought she was a perfect fit to help me navigate the editing of things because it was a lot of photos to go through. I had about 500 photos that I wanted to add to the book, but we had to cut it down to about 200. She helped me see from a different perspective, an outsider perspective like this actually makes sense to me and to others as well.

I think it just helped me get out of my head a little bit with the way that she helps me edit and just her bluntness and honestness about certain things that worked and what didn't work. She really helped and she's been a mentor through my life since I was 21, so I thought it was a perfect fit.

Alison Stewart: We talked about the Barrettes photo, which is one that many people have seen and it blew up online. What is a photo that if that one didn't exist you would hope would be your most famous photo?

Micaiah Carter: I would hope the photo-- there's a photo with-- it's part of baby boy. He has the Power Ranger helmet and it's to the side, but it's like a family portrait. There's a woman in white standing next to him. There's a girl on the ground filing her nails, and there's two brothers in the back. That photo to me is one of my favorite photos I've ever taken.

That one and probably the other one of the baby boy with the yellow barber cape on getting his hair done in the living room. I think that was really special to me because it just feels authentic and it feels like something that is surreal, but it's in my own version of that which I really love, the tones and colors. Even the one up with the cotton candy afro I think is one of my favorites as well.

Alison Stewart: Who's one person you haven't photographed yet but you'd like to?

Micaiah Carter: It sounds cliché but Beyonce. [chuckles] That's like my ultimate dream to--

Alison Stewart: Would you put it out into the world? There you go.

Micaiah Carter: Yes, I will always put that out. I would love to collaborate with her. She also was a big inspiration to me seeing things visually. I remember one of the first albums that I bought was her anthology album which had a lot of her videos. I didn't know that someone could make that many videos and just be that creative and be free with it, so I was like--

Alison Stewart: Micaiah, thank you for being with us.

Micaiah Carter: Yes, no problem.

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