How I Approached Photographing a Trump Rally at Madison Square Garden (And Why I Got Heat For It)
How I Approached Photographing a Trump Rally at Madison Square Garden (And Why I Got Heat For It)
And an eerie reminder of shooting the Trump's election victory party in 2016.
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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.
The difficult part about photographing at Trump events is preserving individual humanity while still conveying the tone of the gathering. That line gets often blurry. People have drawn comparisons between the Trump MSG gathering and the 20,000-person Nazi MSG rally of 1939. While I tried to not have this bias when I started photographing, I kept seeing visual elements that echoed this. The heavy police presence, marchers carrying Trump flags, and the cult-like hysteria of people once Trump started speaking drew eerie parallels to the Nazi gathering. A conspicuous amount of Jewish insignia made such comparison surreal and chilling.
In 2016, with everyone predicting Hilary Clinton's victory, TIME assigned their long-time photographers to capture Clinton's election night party, while I, a newbie, was sent to Trump's. The tide started turning halfway through, and I found myself shooting the feature story about Trump's unexpected victory party. Photographers weren’t nearly as restricted at Republican events at the time, and I was able to roam around (vs. being stuck in a reporter cage) and mingle with the people. The mood was jubilant.
As everyone was dispersing at the end of the night, a man started giving out red MAGA baseball caps to the guests. I gestured “no” and walked away as he handed me one. Then it dawned on me that this is a piece of history, and I ran back to grab one. My husband was half asleep on the couch as I came home at 5am. I put on my MAGA hat and woke him up. “Trump won,” I said. He stared blankly at me and cursed, "Fuck." And you look like Leni Riefenstahl.” We both laughed.
I remembered the Leni Riefnstahl quote while photographing the MSG rally. I also remembered how, among all the good vibes, the mood turned suddenly sour as Trump took the stage. He pointed towards the journalists standing at the back of the room and accused us of being Fake News and the enemy. People who had just been celebrating a moment before turned around and began yelling at us. It was an unsettling moment, and the photo that I took contrasted sharply with the one just minutes ago of a couple kissing.
I felt the same at the MSG rally. The day began with enthusiasm, but as people got worn out of standing in line and protesters started arriving, the atmosphere became heavy. Trump supporters began screaming profanities and phrases like, “Democrat women are ugly.” More people started looking suspiciously at my camera, demanding to know who I work for. One woman who appeared to be intoxicated loudly boasted to her friend that she had voted for her son. Like the opening sequence of Lynch’s Blue Velvet, the jovial attitude of the crowd metamorphosed into a foul-spirited mob.
The Trump election night party of 2016 and the MSG rally both took place in NYC, a place that otherwise feels isolated from the MAGA hat reality. I often catch myself feeling complacent about the election, thinking that in Manhattan, my vote doesn’t really matter. But that complacency has dissipated after spending a day surrounded by tens of thousands of people with militant-style loyalty to a demagogue, and witnessing “New York is Trump County” flashed on a huge screen in front of Madison Square Garden.
Go out and vote everyone.
Find me on Instagram @dina_litovsky
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I really LOVE this. I love that you are able to view and represent a perspective that may not be a match to yours. I love how your photos express the diversity of expression, and how they sum up the basics. We are all human, we are all the same far more then we are different. Amazing!
Really appreciate this perspective. I'm nervous about the outcome of this one. And the aftermath either way.