Ming Smith’s first exhibition was held in 1973 at Cinandre, a hair salon in New York City. At the time, Smith was a recent college graduate who was making ends meet by working as a fashion model. She was lucky: at the Cinandre show she met Grace Jones, whom she photographed wearing a black-and-white tutu. Smith’s work was featured in the first edition of the Black Photographers Annual and she quickly joined the ranks of Black cultural figures. Not only was she the first female member of Harlem’s Kamoinge collective, she was the first Black woman photographer to have work acquired by MoMA. Smith has always experimented with technique and her images can feel surreal. Now, 50 years later, MoMA celebrates her with a retrospective. —Elena Clavarino