Earlier today I read an interesting article about the portrait of Donald Trump being published on the cover of Time Magazine for Person Of The Year, and I encourage you to read it as well. It gives great insight into how photographers can subtly affect the viewer’s perception of somebody they’ve photographed. Lighting, camera angle, lens focal length, and styling all can come into play. Whether you’re a Trump supporter – or a Trump hater – I don’t believe it can be denied that this is a great portrait of him and will be a memorable cover for Time Magazine.

The article suggested that the portrait is a subversive portrayal of Trump and the writer of the article certainly doesn’t seem to be out to give Trump their stamp of approval. But, I also see the ever-present unwillingness from one side to even try and consider the perspective of those on the other side in the article that is all too common these days. Whether it be the thoughts of those on the left from those on the right, or in this case, the thoughts of those on the right from the writer of the article who certainly seems to be on the left.

The writer analyzes the details of the photo and interprets them all in a negative way with no consideration that they can be seen as positives from Trump supports. I’m no Trump supporter, but I do know a lot of them and feel I have a better understanding of where they’re coming from, so let me try and explain why:

He talks about the camera angle of the shot – it being on eye level with Trump rather than looking up at him – which is commonly done by photographers to give the viewer perception of power the person they’re photographing (looking up at the subject). Well, I think a lot of the people on the right could see this as a positive because Trump got out and made them feel like he wanted to be on their level as their president and not looking down on them from Washington. I think many people on the left, including politicians on the left and right, have made rural America feel as if they don’t matter. Trump got out and appealed to those people – and – amazingly – pulled off winning the election due to it.

The writer talks about the imperfections in the chair Trump is sitting in as if they’re all about casting Trump in a negative light. But, I can see where Trump supporters could interpret the chair in a positive way: it representing our tattered country and them wanting to “make it great again” as the chair once was.

And finally, my biggest observation from the portrait and article is a little more difficult to explain for those of you who don’t understand photography in the past and present. So, please bare with me. Here goes:

The writer talks about the use of the muted color for the portrait and it having a Kodachrome-like look to it. He suggested this was intentionally done to subtly suggest that Trump is taking us back in time in regards to issues like civil rights. It suggested that Trump is taking us back to the World War II and Cold War era when Kodachrome was a go-to film for photographers. It was even loved by them. The use of the word “loved” is key there.

I personally know photographers that look back on the Kodachrome days with fond memories. There was a beauty for them in shooting it, getting it back from the lab and having it look absolutely gorgeous when they looked at it on the light box. For those of you that don’t know – Kodachrome was a transparency film rather than a negative film. Meaning, the film itself became a “positive” once processed that you could hold up to the light and admire the beauty of. Whereas negative film needed to be printed first in order to be seen as a positive.

Today, you can’t even get Kodachrome, because, as the article points out, they quit making it. It’s was as if the photographers that still shot it and loved it were told, “You don’t matter. We want you to do things this way now.” Well, I see how Washington has made rural America feel this same way.

Digital technology has given us photographers – options – lots of options – that we once could have never even imagined. It is amazing in so many ways. But, it has also really complicated things for us and given us more work to do and decisions to make as photographers.

Gone are the days of simply picking up our film from the lab with the excitement of a five-year-old looking under the tree to see what Santa brought him on Christmas morning. Gone are the days that we did our best to get an image as perfect as possible in-camera, and then be rewarded for that effort when we saw the film, but also have to accept any imperfections in what we’d photographed, whether it be a product, place, or person. Those days are gone due to our current ability to endlessly nitpick and adjust them in Photoshop to our liking. This isn’t an accurate representation of reality or life, though – is it?

I liken this to how I see society these days. To me, it seems that most people want to have things their way, and only their way. They want to nitpick things without making the effort to try and accept the beauty of the imperfections of life as us photographers had to do back in the Kodachrome days.

So, my point is that I feel that Trump supporters may see the muted Kodachrome like colors of the portrait as a positive rather than a negative – pun intended – and be reminded of the simpler times in life. The times when we had to learn to accept – and if we were lucky – even find a beauty in the imperfections of life.

To be clear, I wasn’t a Trump supporter or a Hillary supporter. I felt it was pretty pathetic that those two were whom the people of this country nominated for this election. I’m a right leaning moderate that’s socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. I’m a Christian, that’s originally from The South, but spent most of my life as a kid living all over the United States, and even overseas for a few years due to my dad’s job. And for the past fifteen years, I’ve lived here in Atlanta – which is a true melting pot. I have friends that I have much respect for that are blatantly liberal and conservative.

I realize that I’m a weirdo, but these things have greatly shaped how I see the world and those around me. People fascinate me. I have a yearning to understand them better, even though I may not always agree with them. I feel that I have a responsibility to help others understand them better through my photography and writing due to this.

These days, to me, it seems that people – too many people – on both sides – believe that we can have a Photoshopped version of life that is perfect in their eyes. On the left, there are those that feel everything should be politically correct and fair for everybody – just as long as they’re not a Trump supporting conservative living in rural America.

And on the right, there are those that seem to want to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the plight of those less fortunate than them. Many of these people claim to love Jesus – yet blatantly show disregard for those that Jesus loves just as much as them: the homeless, the mentally ill, those with substance abuse issues, illegal immigrants, refugees, homosexuals, etc. To me, it seems they don’t want to make the effort to step outside their comfort zone and figure out how to show these groups the love that is suppose to be a hallmark of the Christian faith (look up Matthew 25:34-40 and John 13:34).

So, in closing, the writer of this article interpreting the details of this portrait as he did – as them all having a negative undertone – rather than seeing how they can be seen as a positive too. Well, to me, it was just another example of a serious problem I believe we have in this country today – this being the intellectual laziness of those that simply don’t want to make the effort to even try and consider the feelings of and understand those that are different than them.

I think the photographer, Nadav Kander, did a fantastic job with this portrait because its details can be interpreted in both a negative way – as the writer of the article pointed out – and in a positive way – as I have pointed out here.

How did you interpret it when you first laid eyes on it, before having read the article and what I’ve written here?  How did it make you feel? There’s no need to answer that question for me, but answer it for yourself to gain some insight into who you are. I suspect most all Trump haters will feel a sense of anger and concern when they look at it, and I feel that the Trump supporters will feel a sense of pride and hope.

Me?

I feel confused, and ask myself how could we have gotten to point in this country where we’d nominate candidates as polarizing as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. We’ve made our bed by doing so, and now we have to lie in it. All we can do is hope for the best from Donald Trump – and each other.