Creating a Fashion Photograph

When viewing the latest editorial spread from your favorite fashion magazine, have you ever wondered what goes into creating the image? Hear three artists featured in The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion—Cleveland-born photographer and art director Adrienne Raquel (GQ, Vanity Fair, and Paper magazine), photographer and stylist Arielle Bobb-Willis (Lil Nas X, Lady Gaga, and Billie Eilish), and stylist Jermaine Daley (Interview magazine)—discuss how collaboration between the photographer, stylist, and editor is crucial to the making of the fashion photograph. CMA Assistant Curator Darnell-Jamal Lisby moderates the conversation. 

Adrienne Raquel is a New York City–based photographer and art director. Inspired by femininity, soulfulness, and color, Raquel’s work is rooted in nostalgia and fantasy while remaining fresh and contemporary. She has worked for Playboy magazine, and her exhibitions include Mickalene Thomas’s Better Nights at Miami’s Bass Museum and Aperture’s The New Black Vanguard.   

Born and raised in New York City and Suffern, New York, with stops in South Carolina and New Orleans, Arielle Bobb-Willis has been using the camera for nearly a decade as a tool of empowerment. Battling with depression from an early age, Bobb-Willis found solace behind the lens and has developed a visual language that speaks to the complexities of life: the beautiful, the strange, belonging, isolation, and connection. 

Jermaine Daley is a New York–based stylist and fashion editor. Pulling from his Caribbean upbringing, Daley has a bold yet refined take on fashion storytelling. His attention and focus on color and textures has been a driving force within his works and has ultimately defined his aesthetics within the industry. 

Made possible by the Fran and Warren Rupp Contemporary Artist Fund