When Tyler Mitchell met the most important woman in fashion, US Vogue editor Anna Wintour, to discuss logistics for this shoot, he “was scared she might have a too directive point of view,” he laughs, speaking on the phone. “But the funny thing was how relaxed it all was. Turns out we had a lot in common, the use of colour for one.” He pauses. “Here is a woman who changed American visual culture, yet she seemed pretty happy. There were no complaints.”

Last August, Mitchell became one of the most talked-about photographers in the world for two reasons: photographing Beyoncé for the September issue of the US magazine, and being the first black photographer to shoot a cover in the magazine’s 126-year history. Also, at 23, he is one of the youngest.

It was a historic moment for fashion’s relationship with diversity and social change, and one Beyoncé addressed in the interview. “If people in powerful positions continue to hire and cast only people who look like them, sound like them, come from the same neighbourhoods they grew up in, they will never have a greater understanding of experiences different from their own,” she said. Mitchell describes the singer as “an angel”.

An out-take from Mitchell’s shoot for Document Journal’s AW18 issue. Photograph: Tyler Mitchell

Growing up in Georgia, he got into photography through film. He started making skateboarding videos and films for small-time rappers, and won a place at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. It was a mid-course trip to Cuba in 2015 with 30 rolls of film – “that landscape of Havana, the candy-coloured architecture, it was so complicated and beautiful” – that pushed him towards still photography (and producing a book, El Paquete). Though unsigned, he returned to New York and started collating his portfolio. As befits a photographer born in 1995, he used social media as his platform. “I’m of the online generation,” he says. “I’m always on Tumblr, looking at i-D online. I drink up the content – I’m a product of it.”

An image from Mitchell’s 2015 book from Cuba El Paquete

After commissions from Dazed, Givenchy and Marc Jacobs, the Beyoncé cover put him on the map, though a shoot of gun violence survivors for Teen Vogue in March 2018 – the #NeverAgain movement which included teenage activists from Parkland, Ferguson and Newtown – was as pivotal in its own way. “I’m not an activist,” Mitchell says, “but I’m obsessed with politics, so people do come at me with a political agenda.”

His leaning towards politics and cultural identity is evident in both his work and the people he finds inspiring: “Paul Thomas Anderson, Gordon Parks, Spike Lee, Roy DeCarava.” He is as focused on the politicisation, and reduction to a set of tropes, of black masculinity in popular culture as he is on fashion. Mitchell agrees the industry is becoming more diverse – the recent catwalks are a case in point – but says “Vogue covers were politicised” long before Beyoncé. He believes we have reached a moment where diversity is a given: “It’s not a thing.” Ultimately, he is happy just to be part of the conversation.