The words appeared over and over again on Vanity Fair’s Instagram page Tuesday after the publication posted close-up photos of prominent White House figures as part of a seriesabout the first year of the second Trump administration.
The striking photos depict every freckle, line, strand of hair and makeup smudge on White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, Director of Presidential Personnel Office Dan Scavino, and Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs James Blair.
For many, seeing every imperfection on the faces of the typically polished political figures was jaw-dropping.
“Diabolical,” “done dirty,” “crazy,” Instagram users commented.
But despite the public reaction, the photos were not taken to deliberately show the Trump officials’ bad sides.
For photographer Christopher Anderson, the images are consistent with his style of close-up portraiture. Anderson is an award-winning photographer who has contributed to the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and the Wall Street Journal. He won a Robert Capa Gold Medal for his photographs of Haitian immigrants sailing to the U.S.
“Very close-up portraiture has been a fixture in a lot of my work over the years,” Anderson told The Independent. “Particularly, political portraits that I’ve done over the years. I like the idea of penetrating the theater of politics.”
Anderson and his team spent the day at the White House for the feature on November 13.Theymet with each profiled member in their office for the Vanity Fair portraits. Using a medium-format camera and specific lighting, Anderson sought to capture them in his signature style.
“I know there’s a lot to be made with, ‘Oh, he intentionally is trying to make people look bad’ and that kind of thing – that’s not the case,” Anderson said. “If you look at my photograph work, I’ve done a lot of close-ups in the same style with people of all political stripes.”
In theory, Anderson’s creative vision aligns closely with the repeated sentiments of Trump officials – that this is “the most transparent administration in history.”
Perhaps too transparent for some, though.
“Jesus Christ a warning next time please,” comedian Kelsey Darragh wrote on a post that featured a very close-up photo of Leavitt’s face.
The photo of Leavitt, 28, the administration’s“mouthpiece,” as Vanity Fair describes her, became the more standout image for displaying every facial imperfection – including what some believe to be injection site marks on the press secretary’s lips.
Leavitt’s portrait captured significantly more attention than any of the other portraits posted on Vanity Fair’s Instagram, with more than 20,000 views and 2,000 comments inroughly eight hours.
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