The photo of a bloodied Donald Trump with his fist in the air and an American flag looming in the background is quickly emerging as the central image of Saturday’s shooting, and would not exist without a journalist who quickly and feeling acted.
Video of the assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania filled the television screens before it was even clear what had happened. Still, the work of Evan Vucci of The Associated Press, Anna Moneymaker of Getty, and Doug Mills of The New York Times—whose photo contained clear evidence of a bullet whizzing past Trump’s head—proved the enduring power of still photography in a world that is driven by a flood. of moving images.
Vucci’s image, one of many he captured Saturday, could also have political implications from many directions — as indelible images often do in the days and years after seismic events occur.
“Evan’s photo will undoubtedly become the definitive photo of the (assassination) attempt,” said Patrick Witty, a former photo editor at Time, The New York Times and National Geographic. “It captures a range of complex details and emotions in one still image: the defiantly raised fist, the blood, the officers shouting to push Trump off the stage and, most importantly, the flag. That’s what takes the photo to the next level.”
The New York Post ran the photo on the tabloid’s front page on Sunday with a headline that described the former president as “bloodied but unbowed.” Time magazine put it on the cover. “A legendary American photo,” The Atlantic wrote in a headline above a story about the image.
It all made one thing clear: after more than 175 years of photography, freezing a moment in time for posterity remains just as powerful as telling it on video – and sometimes even more so.
Many news photographers, including AP’s Gene Puskar, were on assignment at various locations around Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Pittsburgh. Vucci was one of four standing between the stage and the audience. Covering a political rally is a routine assignment that the Washington-based journalist has performed hundreds of times; left unsaid is the duty to stay in position when history beckons in the way it did on Saturday.
When he heard popping sounds, Vucci, who has covered combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he immediately knew it was gunfire. He rushed to the podium to Trump’s right, but his view of the former president was quickly blocked by Secret Service agents. He sensed that the officers were going to try to force Trump off the stage and into a vehicle from the other side, so he rushed there.
From that position, he said, “everything opened up for me.”
Trump’s attempts to stand up and wave his fist gave Vucci a clear view of the ex-president. He said the blue sky and flag in the background were an important part of the composition. “I think that told the story of where we are today,” he said.
Witty, like some others, compared it to Joe Rosenthal’s AP photo of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in World War II — an image so memorable to so many that it inspired a memorial.
“I think it will endure and become a symbol of the times we are in,” says Ron Burnett, former president of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and an expert on images.
The presence of the flag may prove to be a lightning rod, as it also makes the photo a powerful political image – in keeping with the increased politicization of the Stars and Stripes in the years since the September 11 attacks. “Already one of the most iconic photos in American history – and one that I suspect will propel Donald Trump back to the White House,” British journalist Piers Morgan wrote on X.
Saturday’s photo with the full flag has been used 2,327 times, while the photo without the flag has been used 1,759 times by AP media clients, the news organization said. Normally the most used photo is viewed 700 to 800 times during an entire week.
It’s not hard to imagine the flag-draped image appearing in Trump campaign ads or paraphernalia, just as his mugshot from his arrest in Georgia quickly did. At least one website was already selling T-shirts with the photo on it.
“I see it being used in all kinds of ways as part of the entourage of images that he surrounds himself with,” said Burnett, who marveled at Trump’s ability to seemingly be aware of what it would all look like amid of such events. a traumatic experience.
Vucci said he has no concerns about how the image is used in public discourse. “The way I look at it, I was there and I did my job,” said Vucci, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for his work on demonstrations after the shooting of George Floyd. “I kept my head and told the story.”
There was other impressive work by photographers on site. Getty’s Moneymaker, for example, captured an extraordinarily intimate image of Trump on the floor of the stage, like a peephole through the legs of a Secret Service agent protecting him.
Mills’ photo for The Times is part of a series showing Trump reaching for his ear after it was hit. In one, barely visible unless the photo is enlarged, there is a line behind Trump’s head that likely illustrates the air movement of a fast-moving projectile, according to a retired FBI special agent quoted in the paper. The Times did not discuss the matter on Sunday.
The officer, Michael Harrigan, told the newspaper: “Given the circumstances, if that doesn’t show the path of the bullet through the air, I don’t know what else it would.”
___
David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him up http://twitter.com/dbauder.
