Micaiah Carter on ‘What’s My Name,’ His Debut Photography Book

On the first page of Micaiah Carter’s debut photography book, “What’s My Name,” there is a picture of three men in ’70s garb—high-waist slacks, black leather vest, round sunglasses—posing on the checkered floor of a photo studio. One of the men sits on a stool, while the other two are standing, dapping each other up. Carter, who has made a name for himself as one of the most in-demand celebrity and fashion editorial photographers, did not shoot this particular image. It comes from a trove of family pictures he sprinkled throughout his 230-page book, which is being published by Prestel and will be available for purchase on October 3. The tome features images of superstars like Zendaya and Megan Thee Stallion rendered in Carter’s signature artistic style: soft, colorful, and cozy, lending the distinct feeling that you know the subjects personally. In the case of the photo of the three men, Carter knows them better than most: the guy on the right, who’s biting down on a wooden pipe and holding up his fist, is Carter’s father. “That’s an image of him and his friends in Vietnam,” the photographer says. “It’s part of a series of shoots they did at a local portrait shop. My dad had these in his scrapbook and let me use them for my projects while he was alive.”

When Prestel approached Carter to create a book of his photographic works, the photog instantly knew he wanted to include images from his family’s archive. In college, he’d leaf through pictures of his grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles—which reminded Carter that a penchant for style and having a great eye was in his blood. “This series of images guided me,” he adds. “When looking at my family album and my own, I realized there were a lot of subconscious juxtapositions between the two.” Among them: “a viewpoint of where things are today, especially compared to the photos of the past,” he says. “It gave me a real look at my parents’ endurance during the Civil Rights era and into the Black Power movement. Comparing them to my images tells the story of where we are now, and the expression and revolution that still exists since the ’70s.”

An homage to his lineage can even be found in the title of the book, whose foreword was written by Tracee Ellis Ross (she and Carter have been friends since he shot the photographs for her inaugural Pattern campaign). “‘What’s my name’ is a saying that my family uses all the time. It gives a sense of identity to who you are.”

Below, browse through a sampling of the photos in “What’s My Name.”