TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2024 captures the year’s defining crises, from war and climate disasters to political polarization. This analysis explores what the images reveal—and what they leave out.
I find your comment regarding the Trump Pennsylvania photo more than a little revealing of your politics - and I say this as someone who believes Trump to be America’s Hitler. Of course he knew precisely what he was doing when he thrust his fist in the air in front of the flag - he was performing, and performing brilliantly. What else would you expect of a ‘reality’ tv performer who is more interested in images than in reality? That photo was the story. It gave him a boost, and probably finished off the election then and there. To not use that photo is to deny our current reality.
BD: this is a really interesting comment. I understand where you are coming from. At the same time, the "Trump money shot" is so embedded in our minds that its mere mention conjures it up. That’s what a mad genius Trump is. Given the manipulation involved, I feel the concept of honoring “the shot,” as both an industry term and a cultural one, has been compromised and corrupted. It's also why I feel the Moneymaker shot is just as important. It represents the perfect balance. I went a lot deeper into this in my post about Trump's "stage direction" of the assassination attempt. – the one that I linked to (https://readingthepictures.media/p/crafting-trumps-hero-narrative-assassination). I can see, though, that I could’ve done a better job establishing a rationale for featuring the more stricken and helpless shot of the invincible Trump than I did. If my choice is more than a little revealing of my politics, that is spot on if we're talking about my visual politics.
I find your comment regarding the Trump Pennsylvania photo more than a little revealing of your politics - and I say this as someone who believes Trump to be America’s Hitler. Of course he knew precisely what he was doing when he thrust his fist in the air in front of the flag - he was performing, and performing brilliantly. What else would you expect of a ‘reality’ tv performer who is more interested in images than in reality? That photo was the story. It gave him a boost, and probably finished off the election then and there. To not use that photo is to deny our current reality.
BD: this is a really interesting comment. I understand where you are coming from. At the same time, the "Trump money shot" is so embedded in our minds that its mere mention conjures it up. That’s what a mad genius Trump is. Given the manipulation involved, I feel the concept of honoring “the shot,” as both an industry term and a cultural one, has been compromised and corrupted. It's also why I feel the Moneymaker shot is just as important. It represents the perfect balance. I went a lot deeper into this in my post about Trump's "stage direction" of the assassination attempt. – the one that I linked to (https://readingthepictures.media/p/crafting-trumps-hero-narrative-assassination). I can see, though, that I could’ve done a better job establishing a rationale for featuring the more stricken and helpless shot of the invincible Trump than I did. If my choice is more than a little revealing of my politics, that is spot on if we're talking about my visual politics.