Trump raised-fist photographs

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American professional photographer Evan Vucci took photographs of Donald Trump with a raised fist shortly after an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. Having heard the initial barrage of shots, Vucci rushed across the podium to take candid photos of Trump being rushed off stage by Secret Service agents.

The photos saw immediate widespread use across the internet and media, appraised as a resilient public image of Trump amidst the 2024 United States presidential election. Many critics hailed Vucci's work, including its composition, display of color, and use of sharp angles, as among the finest works of photojournalism.

Background

At a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, former US President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for president in the 2024 United States presidential election, was shot in an attempted assassination.^[1] Evan Vucci, the Associated Press's chief photographer in Washington, D.C., was one of four photographers stationed in a buffer area near the stage.^[2] He had covered Trump for years and had photographed hundreds of political rallies.^[3] He previously won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 as part of an AP team covering the George Floyd protests.^[4] Seeing United States Secret Service agents rushing towards Trump, Vucci ran to the stage and began photographing.^[5] "I knew it was a moment in American history and it had to be documented", he said of the attempted assassination.^[6]

Composition

Evan Vucci's photographs depict Donald Trump moments after an assassination attempt. His right fist is raised in the air and there is blood on his face. He is surrounded by United States Secret Service agents, one of whom stares at the camera. A US flag waves in the background in front of a blue sky.^[7] In some of Vucci's photographs, Trump's mouth is open as he yells "Fight!"^[8] In others, Trump's lips are pursed.^[9] An uncropped version shows Trump holding a "Make America Great Again" hat in his left hand.^[10]

A published analysis from Sara Oscar for The Conversation said that "[in order] to understand exactly what it is that makes this such a powerful image, there are several elements we can parse; [...] The agents form[ing] a triangular composition that places Trump at the vertex; [...] The agent draw[ing] us into the image, he looks back at us, he sees the photographer and therefore, he seems to see us; [...] Set against a blue sky, everything else in the image is red, white and navy blue. The trickles of blood falling down Trump’s face are echoed in the red stripes of the American flag which aligns with the republican red of the podium." Oscar noted Vucci's knowledge of "the importance of retaining a sense of photographic composure in being able to attain 'the shot', of being sure to cover the situation from numerous angles, including capturing the scene with the right composition and light.^[11]

Reception

Vucci's photographs were widely shared on the internet, along with a video depicting Vucci running across the podium.^[12] Republicans and Trump's allies circulated the photo immediately after the event; some had used the photo as "an opportunity to tout conspiracy theories and stoke political tensions".^[13] The photographs appeared on newspaper front pages in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.^[14]

Writing in The Washington Post, Philip Kennicott described a closed-mouth photograph as "strongly constructed, with aggressive angles that reflect the chaos and drama of the moment, and a powerful balance of color, all red, white and blue, including the azure sky above and the red-and-white decorative banner below. Trump seems to emerge from within a deconstructed version of its basic colors." Kennicott wrote that "It is a photograph that could change America forever", comparing it to the Zapruder film and the 1988 image of Michael Dukakis in a tank. "Vucci's photo will create a reality more real than reality, transforming the chaos and messiness of a few moments of peril onstage in Pennsylvania into a surpassing icon of Trump's courage, resolve and heroism", Kennicott wrote. He described it as "Densely packed with markers of nationalism and authority — the flag, the blood, the urgent faces of federal agents in dark suits", and predicted that it will encourage more political violence.^[15]

The Spectator's Fraser Nelson shared a similar sentiment, saying "[any critic] would have instantly recognised that this is a once-in-a-generation photograph – an image that will become one of the most potent in American politics and history", and hailed Vucci's work as "photojournalism at its most powerful ... the image will be remembered as one of the most important political photographs ever taken".^[16]

Benjamin Wallace-Wells of The New Yorker wrote of an uncropped closed-mouth photograph, "It is already the indelible image of our era of political crisis and conflict." He noted that "some of the elements in Vucci's image are familiar from the countless others of Trump", and concluded, "It is an image that captures him as he would like to be seen, so perfectly, in fact, that it may outlast all the rest."^[17]

Tyler Austin Harper of The Atlantic, describing one of the open-mouth photographs, wrote that it "became immediately legendary", and "However you feel about the man at its center, it is undeniably one of the great compositions in U.S. photographic history." Harper predicted that the photograph would be used in campaign merchandise and advertisements, and that the image will help Trump win the election. Harper wrote, "I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the photo is nearly perfect, one captured under extreme duress and that distills the essence of a man in all his contradictions."^[18]

Yudhajit Shankar Das of India Today anticipated Vucci's work as a "defining photograph of US history", and noted that his prior work photographing in war-torn Iraq likely absolved him of fear of bullets. Das mused that Vucci's work could "act as the Napalm Girl" of the 2024 election.^[19] The Daily Telegraph's Roland Oliphant felt that "[Trump] could not have looked more like an American hero if he tried", and called it "a product of world-class photojournalism – and also, perhaps, of Trump’s innate political instincts."^[20]

Carla Bleiker of Deutsche Welle described one of the closed-mouth photographs as an "image for the history books". She compared it with Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, writing, "Trump's raised fist and his facial expression, accentuated by the blood splatters across his cheek, can be read as an declaration of defiance in the face of adversity", in an "'I'm still standing'-gesture". Bleiker compared the US flag that is the centerpiece of the Iwo Jima image to the US flag in the background of Vucci's image, noting the flag's importance as a cultural image to Americans, especially conservative Americans.^[21]

Jeremy Barr wrote in The Washington Post that one of the open-mouth versions was "sure to go down in the pantheon of American photography".^[22] Geordie Gray wrote in The Australian that one of the open-mouth photographs was "destined to become one of the defining images of our time", describing it as "perfectly composed".^[23] Ashima Grover in Hindustan Times described an open-mouth photograph as a "legendary American photo for posterity".^[24] Timothy Garton Ash said on social media that the photograph would "change the course of history of the world"^[25] One photo, an open-mouthed one, will be used as a cover for the August 5, 2024, issue of Time magazine.^[26]

See also

• Mug shot of Donald Trump
• Public image of Donald Trump
• List of photographs considered the most important

References

Bibliography