My Approach to Photographing a Trump Rally at Madison Square Garden
And Why I Got Heat For It
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I posted my photos from the Trump MSG rally to my Instagram account last Monday, and things got fiery. I expect a hefty amount of people to unfollow me after every election-based post, because I get it — not everyone wants to see politics in their entertainment feed. What I didn’t anticipate is that all the angry comments came not from Trump supporters but, seemingly, from the Left. Whether it was because I didn’t post a vilifying emoji in the captions or didn’t explicitly state who I am voting for, some people assumed that I photographed the Trump rally as a supporter.
These comments were a tiny minority, but they still reflect the attitudes of some people every time I photograph a Republican event. One of the most triggering has been the Trump victory party I shot for TIME in 2016. Thousands of people unfollowed me after I posted those photos, accusing me of being a Republican troll. I was shocked at the intolerant attitudes of my fellow Democrats. The snap judgments and smug moral superiority that place everyone on the right under the deplorable label didn’t leave much room for debate or compromise, partly reflecting the reason why Hillary Clinton lost. I thought we learned our lesson when Biden got elected, but eight years later, the comments under Trump’s MSG rally show otherwise. Deplorables was floated around again, as well as other similar expletives. I wasn’t the only one disturbed. One of the comments said this.
One of the imperatives on my mind when I work at a Trump event is to not demonize the people I am photographing. That wasn’t the case at first. Many of my photos from the very first rallies use extreme angles and under-chin flash to make the crowd look ghoulish. Over time, I came to see those methods as cheap and easy stand-ins for more thoughtful and complex photos. By the time I photographed Trump’s victory party, I changed my approach, and the people in those photos looked, well, normal.
I am not saying that my photos are objective; that would be impossible. Because my work skews towards the dramatic, I am drawn to the exaggerated expressions and the decked-out attire of the Trump supporters that provide my camera with vibrant layers. Having photographed numerous rallies for both Republican and Democratic candidates, the sheer quantity of swag and religious-type fervor makes Trump events visually unique. Photographing at the MSG rally was constant conflict between focusing on people showcasing Trump paraphernalia and avoiding taking a bunch of sensationalist photos.
Even if I disagree with the politics, I never hate the people I photograph. My philosophy is simple: if someone is courteous in our interaction, I will not take a photo that makes them look grotesque. And the truth is, most people I photographed at MSG were nice. They were polite and gracious, like when I almost fell backwards tripping on a rock, and a man wearing a Trump flag saved my camera from hitting the ground. Most people smiled and got out of the way as I tried to get through the dense crowd. There were, of course, exceptions. A few suspicious individuals asked if I am working for Fake News, and one angry woman took my photo as I was pointing a lens at her friend, calling me a Democrat troll.
The most common accusation hurled at Trump supporters is that they are all racist. Eight years ago, I believed that to be true. The crowds I photographed in 2016 were so white that the one or two Latinos or African Americans were singled out by every photographer and treated as an anomaly. In contrast, there was an incredible number of minorities (and young people) among the 20,000+ attendees of the MSG rally, a reality that is echoed in the polls.
The people I interviewed at the rally said that economic security was their primary reason for voting. To dismiss those concerns entirely and label all Trump voters as racist deplorables is to miss the point, just as we did the first time around. And while photographers (myself included) tend to isolate the most flamboyant individuals, most people at Trump rallies look regular. I kept this in mind when looking for subjects to photograph, searching not only for the most conspicuously dressed but also for the most ordinary.