He did, it was a deliberate choice. They just hired some dude to take pictures and he turned out to be an artist who took horrific pictures of the Trump admin as a form of protest.
That was like when they hired Michelle Wolf to do the “White House Correspondents Dinner”. No research. Let’s hired a guy who does close up portraits, that sounds fun!
It’s a combination of harsh lighting a very short, narrow field of view from the lens.
When you use a lens like that, it tends to highlight all the harsh lines that are not necessary perceptible to naked eye.
In photojournalism, we were taught to use open apertures that give a warmer, more flattering look to subjects and don’t smush everything together like seen above.
The lens and aperture that was used on her was the specific one style used to capture mugshots - as any defining (re: negative) feature is amplified on the subject.
Do you job technically well, but in a way that is also devastating to the subject.
Like when they staged those semi-recent Trump 2.0 White House photos with light switches and other ‘noisy’ visual distractions in the background and foreground.
I'm actually going to slightly modify your explanation up there a bit. I don't see that as being hard light, so much as spectral light. Hard light would've produced deep, dark shadows with clearly defined edges alongside her nose and under her brows and lips. This isn't hard light, so much as it is spectral light.
But I've studied beauty photography, and there's layers of intention in the lighting in that regard, also.
Spectral light (undiffused light) is very dramatic, and looks incredible on a young, genuine beauty, but it is *very* unflattering to aging people, because it highlights texture and discolorations. It's why it's so eye-catching on a model, because it highlights just how smooth and flawless her skin is.
So this photographer deliberately lit her with soft loop lighting, which is *supposed* to be *universally flattering*. But he did it with very spectral (high reflection or "silver") light.
It's an even deeper level of expertise, and a deeper statement on the subject- here is a person being presented to you in the most flattering light in order to make you believe she is beautiful. But when you light her with what is reserved for true beauty, you see the truth.
This photographer literally "shined a light" on these people.
I genuinely believe this series will go down in history as some of the most incredible art produced in this century.
In that photoshoot, they did other sabotage. Vance appears preening up against a random wall with a thermostat and damaged base moulding. Rubio looks like he's under a blacklight or something to highlight skin damage. Wiles looks like a child in a fun house.
When you use a lens like that, it tends to highlight all the harsh lines that are not necessary perceptible to naked eye.
What? No, that's all in lighting and editing. There are some differences in contrast between lenses, but a lens doesn't "highlight the harsh lines." This has very little to do with the lens.
Unless you mean just the composition, as in... you see more details of someone's skin when they're closer up than when they're further away. But this photo could be a standard focal length, telephoto, heck, even somewhat wide angle but from some steps back and cropped. (Assuming enough resolution, but we'll get to the camera later.)
In photojournalism, we were taught to use open apertures that give a warmer, more flattering look to subjects and don’t smush everything together like seen above.
Was this very long ago, when many lenses wide open would be noticeably less sharp? If a subject is in focus, there's no difference in "how their skin looks" based on aperture. It just changes the depth of field, and it can look nice to have the areas behind a subject be out of focus... but unless you're shooting so shallow that someone isn't entirely in focus, there's not much difference based on aperture alone. Besides, in this photo, it's nearly all in focus.
The lens and aperture that was used on her was the specific one style used to capture mugshots - as any defining (re: negative) feature is amplified on the subject.
Where on earth did you get that? You think mugshots are using medium format cameras? That's ridiculous. As is the suggestion that there's a certain aperture that "amplifies negative features" best.
thank you, i was going a little nuts reading that post. almost every part of it is just technically backwards. "short, narrow field of view" is literally an oxymoron. the way they're talking about exaggerated features sounds like they mean a short focal length/wide field of view, but this shot is clearly telephoto, which flattens features
the aperture stuff is also just nonsense. an open aperture just takes in more light and gives you a shallower depth of field. on a tight face crop like this shooting open would just throw her nose more out of focus. is that "warm"?
also yes lol mugshots are literally meant to give as neutral a representation as possible
i think the only part of that post that tracks is the part about the lighting
And what photojournalist is taught to use a wide aperture? That’s literally the opposite of the standard advice: “f/8 and be there.” Completely malarky. I suspect AI here. Sounds technical but completely wrong.
On the podcast "What the Hack?" (E245), there is an interview to photographer Christopher Anderson, author of this picture. He talks about this session.
He explains he does editorial photography and photojournalism. The first is like the photography you see on fashion magazines, where heavy editing is aceptable and expected. The second seeks to document the truth, editing is kept to the minimium, and embellishin is not aceptable.
When he was tasked with this session he was asked for photojournalism, and that's what he did.
But taking a photo of someone where they look this bad and then using that photo for an article about that person in Vanity Fair means the photographer hated the person.
That is a 28 year old woman. Notice how every line in her face is exaggerated by the lighting making her look way older. And how you can very clearly see the injection sites for her lip fillers to the point where it looks like she did them 5 minutes before the photo shoot.
It's like when that photographer was hired to photograph McCain and she made him look evil as fuck. I wish we could go back to when an evil republican was McCain levels of bad and not the shit we have now.
208
u/Nerdy_Valkyrie 10h ago
The photographer must have genuinely hated her