'The Triumph of Trump' and the future of photojournalism
How a new historical image trumps AI
We all watched in horror at video footage of Donald Trump being shot during a rally in Pennsylvania, but the iconic still image from the dark historical event came from Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci. It shows Trump with stripes of blood streaming down his face with his fist pumped in the air as he’s nested by Secret Service—with the American flag billowing in the clear blue sky. That this image will be the lasting one came as no surprise to me: I nodded in acknowledgement of its value when it first appeared on my scroll, as it provided an immediate testimony of something destined for the eternal history books, let alone an election in November.
The composition and subject matter captured by Vucci is reminiscent of another immortal image: “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” by Joe Rosenthal. This picture won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography for its stirring depiction of embattled American soldiers who were proudly hoisting their flag in victory at Mount Suribachi.
Vucci’s photograph also evokes the iconic Romantic-era painting “Liberty Leading the People” by Eugène Delacroix, of a central heroic figure raising the French flag in commemoration of the Second French Revolution of 1830 that overthrew a king.
All three images employ a widely used compositional structure: The Golden Pyramid. This highly effective triangular composition evokes the emotionally heightened sense of ascension and valour. In the photo of Trump, the pyramid is created by the huddle of Secret Service at the base, ascending upwards, led by a black structural beam on the left and the flag on the right, leading up to a clenched fist raised aloft as the tallest tip of the pyramid. All the image needs is a title—may I suggest, to place it on the mantle of art history, calling it “The Triumph of Trump.”
Trained photographers are highly skilled at framing their compositions to stir maximum emotion and relevance, often at moments of extreme pressure and speed—and often with forgotten regard for their own personal safety. The following day, Vucci, speaking with CNN, reflected on the historical significance of his image:
“Over my left shoulder I heard pops, the Secret Service rushed the stage, I jumped up and I got there as quickly as I could, and I’m photographing them covering President Trump and then I was thinking in my head ‘OK, what are they going to do next? How are they going to get him off the stage? Where is he going to go? How is this going to unfold?’
You are trying to make all those decisions in the moment.
I ran to the other side of the stage thinking that that would be their evacuation route and as the President was standing up he started pumping his fist and I saw the blood on the side of his face and I knew that that was the moment of what was happening.”
Ten days earlier, a brash opinion piece by Kaivan Shroff at the Huffington Post said artificial intelligence could come to the rescue of Joe Biden as the current president struggled with his cadaverous communication. Subsequent photographs of the assassination attempt reinforce the value and credibility of photojournalists who often risk their lives to report on what they saw—and what makes it meaningful.
Vucci may not have be a student of Romantic or Neoclassical painting styles, but he exists in an era when photojournalists are forced to advocate repeatedly for their value in the age of smartphone-toting citizen journalists who usually deliver scans over sentiment. The generations conjured by AI are more dismal in delivering the banality of centred subjects and crisp studio-like lighting in almost every instance.
By contrast, trained photojournalists employ compositional elements, stylistic genres, and symbolism to provide a sense of resonance and relevance. The use of camera angles, negative and positive space, composition, focal length, scale, proximity, texture, colour, light and shadow—among countless other elements—are all employed intentionally and in tandem, in order to create the image they envision.
Although photojournalists had to defend their profession long before AI became a dominant topic, AI deepfakes are now a well-documented threat to the relationship between news and politics. As a result, AI companies are attempting to mitigate deployment amidst a U.S. election. Midjourney is now blocking depictions of Biden and Trump, and OpenAI’s Mira Murati said users might have to wait until after Nov. 5 to get their mitts on the hotly anticipated text-to-video AI generator Sora:
“Dealing with the issues of misinformation and harmful bias. We will not be releasing anything that we don’t feel confident on when it comes to how it might effect global elections or other issues.”
While we hear the battering ram of AI bash repeatedly and relentlessly against our fortress door of journalistic integrity, we can only hold for so long until the floodgates rush open. How we are prepared for this onslaught must be determined as soon as possible—by reporters, creatives and editors everywhere—and it needs to be done with a thorough and respectful appreciation of why photojournalism exists, and why it’s desperately needed in our changing world, now more than ever.
