By now, President Donald Trump’s infamous photo of himself awkwardly holding a bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington D.C., is well known. That peaceful protestors were gassed to get that photo opportunity has also been established.
But this isn’t about any of that. This is about the photograph that resulted from the walk across the street, the one by official White House photographer Shealah Craighead. It’s about the fact that it is tremendously terrible. It’s a huge failure.
That’s not a knock on Craighead. She’s an excellent photographer who has a long career, even serving as first lady Laura Bush’s official photographer during the George W. Bush’s administration. She’s a consummate professional who has dutifully photographed the Trump White House since 2017 with nary a protest. Or so we think.
Take a look at this photo from Oct. 16, 2019, perhaps the first crack in the armor that signals that maybe, just maybe she disagrees with her boss here:
Craighead's October 2019 photo of Nancy Pelosi engaged in a heated exchange with President Trump.
In the photo, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is delivering a stern, standing rebuke to a seated Donald Trump about the ramifications of removing troops from northern Syria. At the time, it sparked a lot of debate about power and sexism, with each actor looking at it in different ways. Trump viewed it as Pelosi having a meltdown, tweeting out as much, while Nancy Pelosi viewed it as standing up for herself, and changed it to her Twitter banner to troll the president. With one photo, Craighead had managed to both please her employer and trolled him at the same time.
Maybe that was the first crack in the dam, with it finally breaking that fateful Monday, June 1. Perhaps it was the usual lack of preparation when it comes to the Trump team’s photography. He did, after all, just use a lazy, in-the-office, on-the-spot photo for an official portrait and didn’t even let his defense secretary know what was about to come. What are the chances a lowly photographer would be briefed so that they could prepare?
But no, Craighead is a seasoned pro. Even without warning, she could make something. From a technical standpoint, focus, exposure, and white balance are perfect. I argue that this photo, framed this way, and photographed so lackadaisically was a silent cry for help from a photographer who’s just had enough but is too professional to openly protest. Or it’s an intentionally bad photo created in a show of protest over what had just transpired.
Take a look at some of Craighead’s other photos from that failed photo opportunity here and here. What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
This is interesting. The foto's on this site seem to be taken during a two day period (june 1st and june 2nd) However, the times are wacky. 2:10 AM? That's in the middle of the night, right? So is 03:07 AM.
And, the last photo, with Trump in it, seems to be from the 2nd of june, which is wrong. So either I;m seeing different data or something fishy is going on. I'll get my alluminum hat!
I think Aljazeera used the images that supported their narrative, and were either ignorant of the metadata, or (accurately) assuming that no one would check it. I never thought of looking at image metadata for any news article before, but I'm going to start.
You missed to big point: two photo's of Trump during the photo-op show a different date. This means that the Exif-data on these pictures in not reliable. Which means that you can not use this information in any discussion (other than a discussion about their photographic qualities that is...)
Multiple cameras with different time zone settings?
That could be. There are eight photographers represented. They were all careful to have their copyright info set on the cameras. If the TIME is incorrect, then why would we believe that the DATE is correct? That leaves us with taking their word for it, which I'm not willing to do. Just to be clear, nothing against the photographers – good work all! It's the USE of questionable images to support a narrative that I find disturbing.
Even were the times and dates appropriate for the event, EVERY image is designed to support the photographer's narrative, even if subconsciously. The fact, a picture is worth a thousand words, doesn't guarantee the truth of those words, not that the photographers are lying but, even among the most objective photographers, they can't shoot everything and can't know, for sure, what IS the truth.
I saw it when I examined the images; I just didn't mention it in the post.
It's possible that some of the photographers forgot to check the date/time on their cameras. This is a very common thing. Given that the photographs used in the Al Jazeera article are from wire services, they would have had to have gone through at least one editor to double check things, so I'd trust they show what they say.
Wasim Ahmad is trolling you, Trump supporters :)
Stupid article
I visit this site for interesting articles related to photography. This is neither. WTF?
It seem that I need to start looking for a better place to read interesting articles about photography.
I just came back to fstoppers after about two years of not reading it, and within a couple weeks, I am reminded why I left in the first place. FStoppers apparently hires ignorant, inept, undeucated people to write for their site, and it is abbhorent on all levels. I read through the comments, and it makes me happy that there are those, who aren't even Trump Supporters who can't understand the ignorance of the author of this post. Sad...
Yeah, been off two years and then coming back just to leave a stale impression and voting other people down. Well done, buddy!
This opinion piece has met the purpose of driving a conversation! I don’t think the photo in contention is the best storyteller, but it has subtle quality like showing POTUS45 holding the Bible backside to front and upside down. It’s not a headliner photo, imo, but all that work, social travesty and setup for a tepid, church pose has a karmic outcome for the poser.
Lay down the crack pipe, Ahmed.
1. That photo you have up isn't the "infamous" photo.
2. "photographed so lackadaisically was a silent cry for help from a photographer who’s just had enough". Sounds like you're making excuses for the shitty job she did. She's a professional photographer like you are a journalist.
No agenda here... (pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with the AlJazeera links as "well established" proof.) This has NOTHING to do with photo technique and everything to do with your political axe grinding.
Oh boy, there is a lot of comments starting with a variation of "Please no political posts here" before leaning hard into politics.
There is nothing wrong with this picture. It is brilliant portrait of Trump showing who and what he is. Job well done (for the opposition)
Have a look at the situation and imagine you are a (the) photographer. A hard job, that one can tell.
https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1267648379917488128
This video is so illuminating about just how hard this particular job was.
This site is so evidently being brigaded by pro trumps it's hilarious.
Regardless of the quality of this opinion piece or your political leaning, it's facinating to see any pro trump comment go straight to +21...
If you’re a Trump supporter you’re more likely to come here and defend against the comments which are negative towards Trump. A controversial figure such as trump featuring in an article on any platform regardless of the point of said article will draw a strong defence. Hence the comments and high downvote numbers on comments which appear negative towards Trump.
Have a source on that phenomena? Like a peer reviewed study?
Because tome it still looks like troll farms.
To get an idea of the demographic reading this article please upvote this comment if you would vote for Trump in the next election and a downvote if you would vote for someone else.
No, no, no.
Most readers here argue that we should keep politics out of the comments. You're just fanning the fire a little more. Don't, please.
It’s a shame there is any fire at all. Politics will enter the comments section. We cannot prevent that. My question is given that inevitability why can’t it be discussed amicably?
1. Political discussions have a tendency to derail and become messy (see here). Hoping for a amicable exchange of ideas is (I'm sorry to say) naive.
2. Once the results are in, what would we do with it? "Just out of curiosity" is not good enough considering this is a photography site.
I agree but it is worth bringing up the point. Heck, if one person reads my comment and decides to adjust their approach then that is a step in the right direction.
In terms of the results well perhaps it might aide the content creators to consider how they may in future approach an article such as this that could easily spiral into a nasty mess. Maybe I'm asking for too much. I'll probably remove the comment.
?
Though I doubt she will ever get closer access, I would love to see a shot by her of trump in the morning, . . . putting on that ridiculous dollar store orange make-up . . . to cover up the swastikas tattooed on his face.
I can't see your face so you must look a wreck!
Before you comment based off of the two photos in the article, take a look at the Flickr posts in the article... She is clearly trolling him. If those photos were in her recycle bin fair enough, but she has published them online. They do NOT paint him in a favourable light lol.
This is a yuge great great article. It's gonna be big. Definitely not fake news. Your president is the laughing stock of the world.
I love Trump. He may not win the election and I will respect the final outcome. But I do hope we have him for another 4 years. By-the-way, where are you from Jon?