In 51 visually stunning, emotionally compelling portraits, acclaimed photographer Carol Ross presents a hopeful, heartwarming, and caring view of black fatherhood in the United States. In an era that pays little positive attention to black fathers, Ross’s inspirational perspective on the relationships between black men and their children is vitally important—and long overdue.

Ross’s richly textured duotone photographs reveal a group of devoted fathers whose common bond is their profound love for their children. For her subjects, Ross has selected men from all walks of life—college professors, filmmakers, technicians, construction workers, and corporate executives—along with well-known music executives, directors, entertainers, and actors, such as Antonio L. A. Reid, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Funk Master Flex, Doug E. Doug, and Melvin Van Peebles. Film star Samuel L. Jackson, photographed with his daughter, provides the book’s foreword, and each portrait is accompanied by a poignant personal recollection by the father depicted.

Exquisitely designed, Pop: A Celebration of Black Fatherhood finally gives black men their own voice about their experience as fathers. Inspired by her own father, Ross’s book is, in her words, “a round of applause, a bow, a ‘God bless you,’” to all those fathers who “take their children to that place where, one day, they can fly on their own.”

CAROL ROSS has been a portrait photographer for eight years in New York and Los Angeles. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.