Micaiah Carter's had a meteoric rise but there’s far more to come from this prolific photographer

It’s something Micaiah picked up early when he was doing an internship at a local newspaper, The Daily Press, in his small southern Californian hometown. “The news there isn’t the greatest, so I would go out and shoot a mum who lost her son, or another week I’d go out and shoot this guy who was 110 for his birthday party,” he says. “It meant that when I came here to New York I wasn’t like, ‘I just want to be a fashion photographer, that’s my only thing.’ Instead, I just thought I really love photography and capturing images in my viewpoint, no matter who the subject is. I think it can be relatable no matter what.”

Still, building a rapport with a celebrity, often when you don’t have much time with them, is a tricky business. For Micaiah, the secret is often music. “I try to have music on set as part of my process when I take photos,” he says, “because I feel like people can connect with music a lot, and you can find commonalities with it. Like with Taraji P Henson – she really liked my playlist and that kind of brought us to taking some really different photos, because it made her feel more comfortable and she got a glimpse of who I was a little bit.” During shoots, he gives his subjects lots of references for gestures, poses and facial expressions. “People like to be directed a bit. They feel more comfortable that way.”

The images that are born out of this process convey the personality of his subjects in a powerful way, and this tone is garnering Micaiah commercial clients, too, as advertising shifts away from sell, sell, sell and towards something more nuanced. “Advertising people want to have a more personal approach,” says Micaiah. “Something that’s becoming more important is that relatability in photography – instead of having a glossy picture of something they’re trying to sell you, it’s the most natural way possible.” Just look at his campaigns for Nike and Converse and you’ll see what he means.

Another way the industry is changing is that photographers are now being asked to be in front of the camera. For instance, Micaiah was recently approached by a US eyewear brand asking if he’d be interested in featuring on their social media channels. “I just don’t really like photos being taken of me, which sounds weird, but I get really nervous in front of the camera,” he says, with a chuckle. “Maybe because my parents were kind of strict with me, I’ve never been that social – even in college, I had to force myself to go to parties and talk to people. I’m actually a very shy person at the heart of it.”

This goes to the heart of how his art is changing. Thanks largely to Instagram, photographers are no longer able to operate anonymously behind the camera; increasingly they are personalities in their own right, celebrities even. How does the naturally shy Micaiah feel about that? “It’s so different for me because I’m not used to being in front of the camera. So I’m just trying to get used to that whole other side of it,” he says. “The older I get and the more I get into this, the more I realise it becomes about your identity.”

When it comes to his own social media presence, he describes himself as “reclusive” – he doesn’t allow much of his own personality to come through and prefers to focus on the work. But he’s excited by the new challenge posed by the shifts he’s seeing in the industry: “I think it’s going to be cool, that people are excited to see the person behind the camera as well as the photos they take.” (We have a feeling that, if his career continues on its current trajectory, he’s going to have to get very used to that.)

Still, building a rapport with a celebrity, often when you don’t have much time with them, is a tricky business. For Micaiah, the secret is often music. “I try to have music on set as part of my process when I take photos,” he says, “because I feel like people can connect with music a lot, and you can find commonalities with it. Like with Taraji P Henson – she really liked my playlist and that kind of brought us to taking some really different photos, because it made her feel more comfortable and she got a glimpse of who I was a little bit.” During shoots, he gives his subjects lots of references for gestures, poses and facial expressions. “People like to be directed a bit. They feel more comfortable that way.”

Yet, among all the editorial and commercial commissions, and among the new films he wants to work on, there’s one personal project Micaiah is keen to devote a chunk of time to this year. “I’m trying to finish my book that I’ve been working on for the past two to three years,” he says. “It’s kind of a monograph about my dad and the air force in the 1970s, and how his experiences are opposed to my experiences.”

Micaiah’s father was in his twenties when he was posted to Vietnam and, during that time, he took photos and filled a scrapbook that has now been passed down to Micaiah. “I think a lot of the same things I’m going through with discovering my blackness, he was going through, but in a different space and time. There are still similarities that I can pull from his old scrapbook.” Later in our conversation, he describes his father as “one of my biggest inspirations”.

Even though Micaiah’s father was never a professional photographer, Micaiah points to one important thread that runs through both of their images. “That ability to connect in a personal way,” he explains. “His eye and his composition and, I think, the warmth of the subject too, the fact that they’re open to being photographed, open to being vulnerable. He really connected with his subject. I think that shows in both of our work.”

Micaiah is hoping to have a preview of the book ready before the end of 2019. And while we’re looking forward to seeing what this prolific and prodigious young photographer does next, editorially and commercially, it’s that book that really can’t come soon enough.