Landing a Vogue cover shoot is a big deal, often only obtained by the biggest stars. Cardi B recently modeled for Vogue Singapore, Beyoncé appeared on the cover of British Vogue, and Rihanna posed for Vogue Italia– and this all just in the past couple months. Drake even acknowledged the importance of the publication, rapping on “Jimmy Cooks,” “Don’t tell me that you model if you ain’t been in Vogue.”
Understandably, these shoots get a lot of attention, and this was the case for Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s photos for Vogue. The reaction, however, was not very positive. When Annie Leibovitz shared the pictures she took of Jackson on Twitter, people were not happy with how the famed photographer portrayed her.
Many argued that what Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour had promised would be a “historic portrait” was in fact poorly lit. The photos, taken at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, are quite dark and muted in color. Evette Dionne, Executive Editor for Yes! magazine, quote tweeted Leibovitz’s photos and wrote, “Annie Leibovitz and Anna Wintour will one day pay for the crimes they’ve committed against Black women photographed in Vogue.”
Twitter user @Kristalisbougie agreed. “@voguemagazine Please stop hiring Annie Leibovitz to photograph Black women,” she wrote. “She doesn’t light them properly and allows them no grace or beauty only stereotypical visual narratives of BW as either ‘strong’ or beleaguered. Enough already.”
The photographs of Ketanji Brown Jackson are set to be released in Vogue‘s September issue.
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