British Vogue just unveiled its three December covers. Three quick things: First, the cover star is Beyoncé. Second, the spread will take up 20 pages of the issue—20! Almost like it’s actually Christmas.

Third, and most important, the person behind the lens was Durham photographer Kennedi Carter, who, at 21, just became the youngest photographer ever to shoot a British Vogue cover. 

And the covers are electric: Beyoncé in fuschia, Beyoncé in Ivy Park x Adidas, Beyoncé looking directly and unquestioningly at the camera. 

“I had the enormous honour of interviewing Beyoncé, and working with the gifted up-and-coming photographer Kennedi Carter on a 20-page fashion story,” British Vogue Editor in Chief Edward Enniful wrote in an introduction to the issue. “Everyone always wants to know what it’s like to work with Beyoncé and her incredible team, and the answer is … flawless. A perfectionist to the core, more than anything, she wanted her Vogue moment to be filled with positivity as this trickiest of years draws to a close.”

Carter’s work has appeared everywhere from Bitch Magazine to The Oxford American and Vanity Fair, where, in a September 2020 issue edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates, she captured “The Squad,” aka congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib. Her work, as she told the INDY in September, “aims to reinvent notions of creativity and confidence in the realm of Blackness.”

Carter, who was hand-picked by Beyoncé, has been listening to the superstar since she was three years old. She was floored to get the commission.

“I thought I wouldn’t be able to do something at this level unless I was older, with many years in the game,” Carter told British Vogue. “This is for people at the pinnacle of their careers.”

The December issue of British Vogue hits stands on December 6. 

Follow Deputy Arts & Culture Editor Sarah Edwards on Twitter or send an email to sedwards@indyweek.com. 

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