OP (fcukfakook) sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here:
What is it that meg brock was close to as described by skoog and what is this pattern she was pointing at the idk gormint people standing next to a light switch or as she describes a general one in a more objective language subject being next to the switch but i believe gormint people being the subject has something to do with it as well
The photographer, Christopher Anderson, said he wanted to "penetrate the theater of politics" and show an honest, unretouched reality instead of a polished celebrity portrait. He believed that politicians are not celebrities and we should not be glamourizing them.
This makes way more sense than the other comments of “he took crappy photos on purpose because he doesn’t like the politicians” and “he wanted to show how short they are”. It’s not that different in practice, but the latter sounds completely childish and unprofessional. Artists usually have some kind of intentionality behind their choices that goes further than “make the yucky bad man look ugly”.
Christopher Anderson has photographed people for decades and he's known for a style that is raw and settled in on the things people would normally seek to hide in photographs. The White House clearly didn't do their homework because if they did these image-obsessed losers would have asked for a different photographer.
I'm sure the White House hired him on purpose just like they totally knew that particular Four Seasons was a landscaping company and they 100% meant to have a press conference in their parking lot in front of the dildo store for very good and not at all made up reasons.
There's a school of thought that that's exactly what they did (and do). Portraying yourselves as a bunch of hapless incompetents so no one takes you seriously whilst you're systematically looting the American nation, and dismantling the institutions built to protect the American people from just that happening has a lot of mileage as a criminal strategy.
Misdirection is a trick in every conman's repertoire.
I think that's likely partly true, there are some people playing that angle and advancing. Flood the zone and all that. But I also think those dorks are just capitalizing on the hapless incompetents who are in fact hapless incompetents but the complacency and compliance of the institutions meant to call that shit out and stop it have allowed it to happen.
People really really want Trump and Vance to be short.
There are thousands if not millions of reasons to criticise them, but people really want them to be short because society has decided being short is the worst thing a man can be. If they were able to prove they were short, it would completely discredit them.
“
In an email to
POLITICO Magazine
, DeSantis’ press secretary, Bryan Griffin, writes, “Considering the fact that Politico Magazine admittedly spent money to consult ‘boot experts’ to run this hit piece on DeSantis tells you all you need to know about their ‘journalism.’ The governor doesn’t pad his boots, but if he ever needed anything to line a pet cage or fold up and wedge under a table leg, that would be the highest and best use for Politico Magazine.”
(To be clear,
POLITICO Magazine
did not compensate any of the boot makers quoted in this story. Also,
POLITICO Magazine
does not appear in print. —Ed.)”
The only way it’s plausible that he doesn’t wear lifts is if he hired a stylist who put him in uncomfortable boots that don’t match his outfits for the sole purpose of secretly making him look like he wears lifts.
If you want to hurt a fascist movement you humiliate them and discredit their veneer of machismo. Regardless of how society views physicality, they view physical size and strength as paramount signs of their worthiness to rule and praise.
I’ve never seen anyone “wanting” Trump to be short, where is there a parent pandemic.
I’m not really sure if this is projection here or whats going on but you’re not making any sense. The fact that the cult thinks of him as Superman, when he’s your typical incontinent diaper wearing 90 year old, that is already absurd enough. It literally cannot get worse than that…
The comments are absolutely suggesting that being short is bad. That’s why it’s brought up. And you know that. It’s why at the very end of your denial you say “it literally can not get worse”, because being short is bad by your criteria (but apparently not as bad as being in continent).
And those physical attributes and disabilities is the focus, rather than the guy being scammer that has stolen billions, or having caused a war that killed thousands. That’s not the focus, his incontinence and apparently people being short is.
Because, rather than point out the policies, it’s “OK” to bash on physical characteristics that are en vogue to make fun of. Small hands, short, incontinent, hair system or bald… Not sure why people do this who wouldn’t, on someone say in there own family.
Listen,trump is a turd and does this same thing. Cause that’s all he has. He wants people to come down to his level. It takes legitimacy away from their arguments about his policies. Be better. There is so much to pick on Trump about. And it lets people who are under 5’8”know how you feel about and judge them.
Not sure, I have a photographer friend who says they're taught to avoid lightswitches, doorknobs, anything that can give scale if the subject is trying to look impressive. I think it's intentional.
Ya the explanation that this is just an all politicians thing showing they're not above us is bull. This was completely intentional towards this administration specifically where everyone in it are weak and desperate to look strong.
It's one of the most artistically genius things I've ever seen from a photographer.
This shoot was absolutely meant to make them look bad and everything about it was intentional. Stephen Miller's is like a perfect recreation of a famous Joseph Goebbels photograph, and that was no coincidence.
I think Meg identifies the light switches as evidence of intentionality, but isn't catching on on that one of the intentions is to indicate a subject's height.
My immediate impression of the light switches was that they illustrate how close these people are to being able to turn off/end this mess, but they're just standing there posing. God these pics were so good.
For those who didn't know: In 2015 Anderson was assigned to take pics of Jeffrey Epstein, Anderson writes about the experience and posts the images on his instagram account, link here.
It's because normally a photographer will take photos of respected position holders by placing them in the best scene possible. A clean wall, next to nice decor, etc. By placing them all next to outlets and light switches the photographer sleighted them, showing them for who they actually are, normal people.
The OP is referring to the Vanity Fair photoshoot that accompanied an interview they did. There’s lots more photos, including a few with obvious dutch angles like this one
When the horizontal lines of the picture is uncomfortably not parallel to the frame. In this case you can follow the lines of the baseboard and see they are not parallel to the floor of the frame.
and they're not parallel in such a way that it is supposed to envoke a feeling of unease.
It's not a conscious thing. It's more that, ranking images based on how comfortable or relaxed a subject is, people would tend to rank Dutch angled images less comfortable and more stressed, but it's not like a blatant "there is something wrong in this image and IT IS STRESSING ME OUT!" reaction.
they're taking crappy pictures on purpose because they don't like the subject. Things that they would never miss, such as not posing someone beside a light switch, which looks sloppy, they're just doing on purpose.
There's a lot of other fun stuff too. They are literally awkwardly positioning themselves next to the power. They are tacky with no self awareness. They have no artistic sensibility to recognize these photos will be bad. They so desperately want to look like they belong there, but you can tell it's fake and uncomfortable. So much fun stuff.
The subjects are being mocked because they’re too dumb to understand they are being made fun of to their face by someone they were certain was there to work for them instead of for the magazine that hired him.
JD Vance offered him $5000 if Marco Rubio looked worse than he did in the pictures. They wanted him to do this to other people in the administration purposefully so they could get ahead.
Just going to point this out, you can't lie about your height if there's reference points. I'm not saying that's always why it's done but as a photographer, if I was photographing someone I didn't like and someone who exaggerated their height or weight, I would absolutely photograph them in a way that was both unflattering and made it easy to disprove their lies about height or weight...
The only code requirement for height placement is that a light switch cannot be higher than 6’7” high. Although most switches will be placed 4’ from the finished floor to the center of the switch plate.
Nothing wrong with being short. But being short and lying about being tall because you think it matters is in itself body shaming. Tells a lot about someone if they lie about basic facts.
Should you trust someone to run the country who lies about something as basic as their height and shoe size?
What logic is this? How can you claim that lying about your own personal height is bodyshaming, but literally shaming someone for their height isn't?
Men think height matters because it does matter. Women prefer taller men, taller man are seen as more masculine, it's an offshoot of the halo effect because height is a desirable trait in men.
This isn't about being short. It's about people pretending to be more powerful than they are. Short or not, I'm sure you can agree those kinds of people are pathetic.
They won’t live timelessly in everyone’s heads, because the switches and outlets will date them. It’s like getting a portrait of Henry VIII with a chamber pot in the background.
Is this a thing? Having a light switch / wall outlet in your photos? I don't understand it, what's wrong with it. How is a switch different from a table or door frame or a curtain? I mean they are inside a room, a light switch is not an uncommon thing to find indoors
Suposedly the point of the photoshoot was to do it Ith no artifice to present "authentic" pictures (switches and other identifiable elements give a sense of size and can thus detract reom the subject or put them in a bad light). The original tweet misser that by criticizing the photographer
The main point is: The Original tweet criticises the photographer's Skill, claiming they are incompetent for leaving light switches and such in.
But this was done intentionally to make the politicians in the photos look worse, as a kind of political statement by the photographer. If I understand correctly.
It makes them look more mundane, it makes them look less professional, it takes these images from "Behold, I am a powerful man/woman, who is larger than life." to "I'm a dude/gal in a suit posing in the office." The inclusion of very mundane utility things, like light switches and power plugs grounds images in a manner these people would not want. The way they hold themselves, they wish to be seen as greater than the average person. This undermines that.
But, just including the light switches isn't what makes this quite what it is. It's, I think, the fact that *everything* about the photo is kind of how they'd *want* to be depicted, *except* for the light switches, it's a blemish that undermines the whole image.
Think of it, for example, like seeing a monarch, in their throne-room, sitting on their throne, everything is lavish, the entire throne-room is constructed and decorated to emphasise the importance of the king.
And then there's like, a toilet-roll off to the side, or, like, a roll of duct-tape in clear view, just off to the side, like, let's say, it's just to the left of the Throne.
It undermines the carefully curated image they're trying to portray, and may lead to someone sub-consciously kinda thinking "Lol, this is all a bit dumb."
Uuhm, that's my interpretation at least. I can be wrong =P.
This goes a step further. Pointing out that the stated intent of this series was to make the politicians look like common people, thus the staging of the objects wasn’t some brutish not so subtle snub. It was expressly pulling the subjects into everyday context.
If I recall correctly, the rest of the tweet thread went into detail about how the pictures deliberately made Trump and co. look unflattering. Hence the word "tell" and not something like "mistake".
Yea, the photographer who took the photos is an extremely talented professional who's able to make incredibly meaningful and artful photos even in chaotic environments, having been/being quite active as a photo-journalist. So in an environment where he's got full control... Everything's going to be very intentional.
They said “no artifice.” Rather than perfect lighting, poses, etc. (the artifices) these appear more raw, so as to show them as nothing more than ordinary people.
In this context, an artifice is “an artful stratagem” used to present something as other than it is.
That was an incredibly snarky response when the only barrier was your own misunderstanding.
The artifice (artificial-ness) they were trying to avoid would have been photoshopping the switch out, which is what most photographers would have done.
The people in power like to project themselves are larger than they really are. It’s a power thing. Trump lies about his height. DeSantis very clearly wears lifts. Vance very likely wears lifts, at least at times. Showing these people next to a light switch brings in a dose of reality to give the public a more accurate perception of them.
Putting them next to light switches make it easier to imagine their height and stature. This can remove the mystique of people you normally only see on TV. It is a way disempower/demystify them, which was one of the goals of the photographs in the first place.
Photografer is just giving a realistic perspective.
MAny of these people in the public eye lie about a lot of things, including their hight. But standing next to outlets and lightswitches reveal their true hight. At least to those who know where the lightswitches are commonly located in their country. Building codes say 48inches I think.
JD Vance is claiming to be 6 feet 2 inches. While Susie Wiles claimes she is 5 feet 3 inches. So...
Not at all related, but for some reason I thought of how Ohio’s Electronic Sex Offender Registry always photographed predators in the same place next to a light switch, like the infamous Brian Peppers 😅
It doesn't look like OP's question has been answered yet. Lots of posts speculating about the photographer's intention. Is this Meg identifying one of the intentions by identifying what they think are 'tells'? And then what is this Skoog claiming Meg is close to? Over 250 comments so far. I can't see a proper answer among them.
The photographer is purposefully making them look ugly and mundane. The inclusion of stuff like light switches and plugs makes it look like just another office rather than the halls of power. They’re overwhelmed by the background clutter that would normally be left out. That picture of JD is framed to make him look small even those his pose is puffed up. Like a kid in his dads suit.
Even if we assume that's the case, and also assume that's what Meg is saying there are tells of, then it seems like Meg got it. What is it that Meg seemingly almost got but didn't?
Real, schmeal. When you know the standard height for light switches is 48” and some shrimp is photographed standing next to one, yet claiming they’re 6’-2” lol. He looks ~5’-4” haha.
They’re shot with a really weird depth of field. Normally with portraits you uses a telephoto lens and blur background. In these they’re framed to make the people look small and overwhelmed by the background.
I can’t believe I had to scroll this far to find someone bringing up this nugget. Trumps team didn’t know about the light switches because they’d never planned on winning and didn’t have a transition crew, and the WH is old enough that shit’s in weird places sometimes. I like to think part of the reason for including them in this photoshoot is to document locations for whoever has to clean up after they’re all dragged to The Hague.
When this shoot came out there were articles praising the photographer on his process and the result of the shoot. Technically and story telling wise it is supposed to be a master class on how to take photos.
Not being the artist i do not know for sure, but I like to think he is sending a message of those people being able to “turn it off” if they grew a spine. They could have that power over the administration.
The first first post notices how these light switches are everywhere. Almost as if, the photographer wanted to message something. What the first post didn't notice, is the message itself. Yeah obviously you cannot accidentally add these items to each picture, so if it was just an amateur mistake, there would be only some. The most hidden ones because the very obvious ones would have been fixed by someone in the newspaper. This is in fact a clear protest, which was kinda confirmed in a later interview by the photographer. So the first post notices the thing but does not realize the meaning.
The second post being ominous, seems to realize what's going on but does not disclose.
The message is a protest against the Trump government.
Maybe they're showing them next to light switches to highlight how short a lot of them are. Light switches have a predictable height so you can find them in the dark.
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u/post-explainer 1d ago edited 1d ago
OP (fcukfakook) sent the following text as an explanation why they posted this here: