A Life in Pictures with Miranda Barnes
Photography Miranda Barnes
Caribbean American photographer Miranda Barnes has documented everyday American life within the Black diaspora for over a decade, here she shares the people and places that shape her approach.
Stylistically moving between black-and-white and color, self-taught photographer Miranda Barnes only shoots in film, allowing for a more textured result. Each image is carefully composed: “It’s really intentional,” she says, relaying tales of shooting her subject under a perfect second of sunlight, or when she has instinctively opted for a smaller lens to discreetly capture an intimate moment. But it’s the people that make the work exciting for her. She’s always, “looking for that person to make an interesting photograph.”
MIRANDA BARNES, GIDDINGS, TEXAS, 2021v
I’m always looking for that person to make an interesting photograph.
Miranda Barnes
The image Mr. Floyd Carol Senior, Willie Chapel Primitive Baptist Church, Austin, Texas (2023) is emblematic of this. Floyd is captured mid-smile as he removes his glasses. Filling most of the frame, Floyd is the clear focus in the image, the green landscape magnifying the brilliant green of his hat and shirt, his gold ring glistening. The image came out of Barnes seeing him take his glasses off, and asking him to do it again, which made him laugh. “I love that one so much, being able to hold his personality like that.” Floyd sadly passed away shortly after the image was taken, making the experience a treasured one. “It’s a beautiful thing to have,” she says. Brooklyn-born and of Caribbean heritage, Barnes’ first experience of using a camera was with a disposable one. As a teenager, she would regularly photograph her friends. Her prom, in particular, felt important to document. For Barnes, it encapsulated a poignant universal coming- of-age moment, a sentiment that chimes with her current project Social Season. Shot over four years, it portrays African American teenagers attending a debutante cotillion one evening in Detroit. The proposal caught the attention of director Sofia Coppola, who collaborated with her on the project, due to launch as a coffee table book early next year.
MIRANDA BARNES, GIDDINGS, TEXAS, 2021
Tumblr also played a role in her career. The site engaged Barnes with an infinite stream of “cool” images during her teenage years; while offline, Barnes’ family life was captured by her great-grandfather on an iconic Rolleiflex camera that she now owns. “He was an avid photographer, and it was clear that it was a very real thing for him,” she says. Family photographs would be laminated by her grandmother to keep them safe. She cites their interest in photography as deeply impactful.
Barnes studied criminal justice and history at John Jay College in New York, developing a unique lens to frame her photographic work. In her final year, she was invited by The New York Times to shoot a series of images for the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death, paving the way for an entwinement of political history with photography for Barnes.
MIRANDA BARNES, MR. FLOYD CAROL SENIOR, WILLIE CHAPEL PRIMITIVE BAPTIST CHURCH, AUSTIN, TEXAS, 2023
“I don’t receive assignments like that anymore,” she notes, unsure of the reason why. But a socio-political thread still runs through her work. The debutante series, she explains, although glamorous, reminds us that within living memory, it was deemed inappropriate, perhaps even dangerous, to be a well-dressed, articulate Black person. The series Doubles (2016-17) is a celebration of sisterhood. For this project, Barnes, (whose own grandmother was a twin), photographed Black women in pairs all around America: twins, sisters, and friends. A stunning black-and-white image of twin girls in ballet costumes stands out. The twins, Barnes explains, reappear again in a recent body of work, this time photographed in sequined dresses just before their prom (Tory and Tyra Before Their Middle School Prom, New York, 2025). “I consider them family now,” she smiles.
MIRANDA BARNES, GIDDINGS, TEXAS, 2021
MIRANDA BARNES, GATHERING OF NATIONS, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO, 2025
MIRANDA BARNES, TORY AND TYRA BEFORE THEIR MIDDLE SCHOOL PROM, HARLEM, NEW YORK, 2025
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