THE DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
"My whole life is made up of favorite sayings."
Commercial photographer Dwight Carter was born on August 14, 1943, in Birmingham, Alabama, to Dorothy and Alfred Carter. He grew up in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Susan Miller Dorsey High School. Carter received his A.A. degree in 1964 from Los Angeles City College and his B.F.A. degree in photography in 1967 from Art Center College of Design, in Hollywood (later Pasadena), California.
From 1960 to 1966, Carter worked in the medical records room at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Los Angeles, California. In 1967, he became a photography assistant to Richard Avedon and Hiro Studios, in New York City. Carter entered the U.S. Army in 1969 and served as a combat photographer in the Vietnam War, including as personal photographer for General Creighton Abrams, Jr. He returned to New York City in 1970 and became studio manager for the Bert Stern Studio. In 1973, Carter founded his own commercial photography studio, Dwight Carter Studio, in New York City. In 1990, Carter documented the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s opening in Cairo, Egypt, and the tenth anniversary of the independence of Zimbabwe.
Carter has photographed Oprah Winfrey, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Maya Angelou, Carmen de Lavallade, Leontyne Price, Florence Griffith Joyner, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Marcus Samuelsson, Nell Painter, Alvin Ailey, Ming Smith, Alice Walker, Mae Carol Jemison, Don King, Lezley Saar, Betye Saar, Harry Belafonte, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Howardena Pindell, Alonzo Davis, Denise Oliver-Velez, Alice Childress, Sarah Jones, President Richard M. Nixon, and others.
Carter is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers.
Carter and his wife, Janice M. Carter, live in New Jersey. They have one child, Brian Carter.
Dwight Carter was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on December 13, 2021.