Said the photographer Christopher Anderson, quoted in "The Vanity Fair photographer who disrupted Trumpworld’s polished image/Every line, spot, blemish and blood vessel was captured by Christopher Anderson’s lens. What was he thinking?" (WaPo)(gift link for photographs and the entirety of the interview with the photographer).
December 18, 2025
"Obviously, celebrity portraits on the cover of Vanity Fair are not really about journalism in the way that you and I think about journalism."
"But then there’s the other side of Vanity Fair, which is real journalism. I’m surprised that a journalist would even need to ask me the question of 'Why didn’t I retouch out the blemishes?' Because if I had, that would be a lie. I would be hiding the truth of what I saw there.... If presenting what I saw, unfiltered, is an attack, then what would you call it had I chosen to edit it and hide things about it, and make them look better than they look?... This has been a fixture of my work for many years. I’ve photographed all political stripes just like this. You will find... beloved figures on the left photographed in the same way.... I go in not with the mission of making someone look good or bad. Whether anyone believes me or not, that is not what my objective is...."
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65 comments:
Vanity Fair can F right off.
Anyone of us - even top super models- look bad under a close-up magnifying glass.
F Vanity Fair(D) - the Maddow-colbert of glossy.
susie should resign.
The blog has a theme for today: Don’t be Like This…
Is he saying that photography isn’t an art and that the photographer doesn’t matter? Is he saying news organizations don’t need to employ photographers because anybody can do what they do?
Because it sounds like that is what he’s saying.
Am I supposed to recognize that person?
Megan Stack said it best on her twitter feed: this is the photographers style. Honesty. The lip injections aren't really invisible. (I didn't know that's what we were looking at, or that this was the "pretty, young" press secretary's face -- Caroline Leavitt -- until it was pointed out. (Still too fearful to comment independently until your readers weigh in and you can read the room, eh prof? Try to be more courageous and venture an opinion/context about what you're displaying here, ann? Don't be afraid.)
It's Jenna Griswold.
Vanity Fair is NOT real journalism.
This is the same yellow rag that employed deranged and lying quack ,William D. Cohan, who wrote the libelous, conspiracy theory- infested BS slog about the Duke Lacrosse rape hoax. He's curiously gone conspicuously absent since Mangum finally fessed up to escape the statute of limitations for defamation suits.
Of course VF and the leftist propoganda machine were the only ones buying her and Nifong's sleeze to start so they hailed Cohan as a prophet.
Vanity Fair also cheered Rolling Stone's fake Rape hoax too, so that should tell you something as well...
It was a hit job, pure and simple. But why any of them thought it was a good idea to sit down with VF is beyond me.
"... Because if I had, that would be a lie...." He said, with a confident smirk.
There is a lot riding on a one-sided assumption of civility, these days, and it's been 10 long years of it going critical, maybe more. I sometimes wonder how many people might be concluding that these behaviors aren't going to end without violence, if political defeat at the polls isn't enough.
Narrator: "No one believed him"
Once you realize that Lefty media is made up of the cliquish Mean Girls from High School their actions become much more understandable. It is not that they never grew out of the female bullying habits, it is that they enjoy it. Damaging the image or reputation of another person while feigning innocence or purity is a classic female bullying tactic. I will note that female bullying tactics are not only used by girls and women.
Notice, the photographer doesn't claim he -- or the VF photo editor for that matter -- didn't "retouch" the photos to make them look worse. Indeed, "presenting what I saw" is subjective and not necessarily reality.
'Why didn’t I retouch out the blemishes?' Because if I had, that would be a lie. I would be hiding the truth of what I saw there.... If presenting what I saw, unfiltered, is an attack, then what would you call it had I chosen to edit it and hide things about it, and make them look better than they look?
Trump Sells.
Huh. I look at the photograph and am drawn to those eyes.
Striking.
I am Laslo.
Trump should fire everyone involved in the planning and participation in this set of interviews, including his naive Vice President.
You want friends in Washington DC then get a dog.
I don't know anything about Vanity Fair. It is outside my ken.
Maybe conservatives will learn a lesson from this - finally. If so, Wiles will have done service.
It seems like it would be fairly easy to compare these photos to his prior work and see if he's been consistent about not retouching photos or if this is a newly-found "ethical" stance.
And one more time...Lucy pulls away the football, Charlie Brown. At some point one stops being a victim and signs on to chumpdom.
The truth is AI is going to put him out of a job soon.
How does one of Trump's top people sit down with a hack/ known hostile /glossy media ?
Really - I think Susie might be a mole.
Well bannon did a similar thing with wolff he went mostly anonymous about that
After this, each subsequent book was more ridiculous
In the case of the Obamas, "what I saw" was Anderson using shadow and/or black-and-white soft focus.
No extreme pore revealing close-ups.
Yep we all know, except Suzee, that the DEI Mophead Binder gets the glamour shot and the earnest and friendly Leavitt gets the shit show treatment. We knew! The same magazine completely froze out an actual beautiful model First Lady but slobbered all over fake-doctor Jill and her curtains-as-dresses style. It'd be funny it were not so sad.
Yes, sad. It is sad that so many have to pretend to not notice so much on the leftward side. Reality must really sting if you have to constantly massage and tweak stories and photos to fit into your blinkered life.
Don't forget the manufactured halos for Obama! Good times!
"...disrupted Trumpworld's polished image..."
Wha?
Whether anyone believes me or not, that is not what my objective is. I go in wanting to make an image that truthfully portrays what I witnessed at the moment that I had that encounter with the subject.
I believe that the photographer hates all of Trump's people, and took photographs to truthfully communicate that.
Karoline Leavitt is an attractive and dynamic person. The photograph doesn't show that.
Susie Wiles didn't look bug-eyed and startled during the entire photo shoot. That's probably how she looked when she read the Vanity Fair article.
Vanity Fair, and much of corporate media, is lost. Conservatives have to go elsewhere.
Its like one of those spitting images (featured in genesis 'land of confusion' with the most ironic timing'
It makes me suspect most of the quotes are fake or ellipsed (thats the jane mayer way)
I liked the portraits I saw. The first one looks like present-day Anne Hathaway, which is a compliment.
I did Google this photographer's portraits and must observe that filter vs no filter is only one way to make a point; one portrait of Obama that I saw, for instance, did show uneven skin texture upon zooming in, but was lit and framed in such a way that the overall impression was serious, quietly heroic, you know, positive. I wonder if this photographer acknowledges that "what he sees" has a personal, emotional component.
I tried to find a photo of Mr. Anderson. He doesn't seem to be a fan of exposing his own imperfections.
https://x.com/oh_anderson?lang=en
I actually found the photos to be laughably cartoonish.
"These be villains!"
Laslo: I agree with you. When a woman's face shows experience, I go towards her, not away.
Ref the pics as a whole: Trump should treat them like the mugshot and put them up all over the WH.
Vance's pic makes him look like a clan chieftain deciding on how exactly to kill his defeated enemies. He should use it in his 2028 campaign. "VOTE JD AND FINISH THEM."
Rubio's in b/w makes him look like a film-noir problem solver. "YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT I'VE DONE FOR THIS COUNTRY. ELECT ME AND I'LL KEEP DOING IT." CC, JSM
The only thing I knew about Vanity Fair (before all the current nonsense) was from when I worked in the Periodicals Section at my university's library. Their review of the Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz (mid-Seventies model) was epic: "decked out like a Texas Renaissance boudoir."
Well, Wince--he apparently didn't like Michelle.
Except we already know that VF always edits photos of Democrats, because you never see the horns.
Hey Mad Town--I had a job managing the periodicals in my college library. Best "work study" job ever. I got everything first and read while I worked.
It is sad that so many have to pretend to not notice so much on the leftward side.
That's the crux of it, isn't it? If you're on the left, you can't simply observe and acknowledge reality; you have to interpret it through the proper filter. Choices must be made, and those choices must be based on how the right people feel.
This video - https://youtu.be/8ynCVmw5AWk?si=0TM88lynUdV9n5Ya has an interesting take on how whole-language instruction and its godchild "critical literacy" have been conditioning children (who are now adults) not to read and think critically, but to be barely literate and wait for their betters to tell them what to think about what they have marginally "read." One part of it: if you ask a young adult what she thought of a movie, isn't she awfully likely to tell you what its Rotten Tomatoes score was, rather than give you her actual, considered opinion? Or maybe (this is my inference) to give her assessment of how accurate the Rotten Tomatoes score is?
I remember my kids coming home from a long day of elementary school struggling to make "text-to-self" or "text-to-text" or "text-to-world" connections, rather than reading and interviewing a text based on what the author was actually saying. If it couldn't be compared to something else with which the child was already familiar, did it really exist?
And hence to photography, an art form in which the artist makes decisions about how to take, filter, develop, and present the art. And this guy is paradoxically claiming - or maybe pretending to believe - that his artistic integrity demands that he make the choices he makes, and also that his choices are not important to how the viewer perceives his art. You can't have it both ways - unless you believe you are one of the "right people" whose opinions move the world because they are necessarily the correct opinions.
Or robbie conals 'portraits'
I can be persuaded to believe that Mr. Anderson is completely neutral, but that would take some work. In any event, I would imagine that the images that are selected for publication are selected by VF's editors, not by Mr. Anderson, and I wouldn't trust a VF editor as far as I can spit.
Bad enough to be funny. It is a form of assassination, and I expect it has its cheerleaders.
Leftwing photographer tries to make anyone he dislikes look ugly. News at 11.
It's okay to judge women by their looks. That's my take-away from this picture and the discussion.
I've seen on the internet folks saying that the the little marks on her lips are injection points for lip filler. It made me wonder if Trump noticed that, or was aware that she has gotten lip filler injections and brought up her lips numerous times in a positive manner to try to make her feel like other people had noticed the effects of her efforts.
It is a horrible picture and I do not believe him when he said he is not biased. This is one of the photos that my wife would make me delete. Me too for that matter.
Only an ignoramus would think that those pictures would influence anyone's opinion. George Washington's age and experience were counted as plusses, rather than minuses. Andrew Jackson took pride in his own scars and wrinkles. "Old Hickory" got further than "Young and Pretty Hickory" would have.
I don't believe I've ever seen a magnified close up like like in a women's magazine. There were a few shots like that of Jamie Lee Curtis in the show "The Bear" and they were notable. I believe that Ms Curtis specifically allowed them as she was promoting herself as not having work done on her face. She is also 30 or 40 years older than Ms. Leavit.
Win-win for everyone. Trump haters can look at the photos and contemplate the cold evil of his minions. Media haters can look at the photos and contemplate the sheer bias of the media.........It's not that hard to take an unflattering photo of Trump, but the two most famous photos of him--his mugshot and post shooting fist pump are rather heroic. I don't know if it's luck or instinct, but he certainly knows how to present himself at key moments. He wasn't a media star by accident.
I had to stare several times at that photo to figure out what was being discussed. Still barely notice it. But also reading about something called Mar-a-Lago Face. Mostly wome, but Matt Gaetz also featured.
Vanity Fair was only worth reading when a Hitchens’ piece was included. And since he’s been gone, one doesn’t give VF a second thought. Irrelevant.
I don't know if it's luck or instinct, but he certainly knows how to present himself at key moments. He wasn't a media star by accident.
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That PR assassination attempt was all staged, some say...
The photographer was set up to be in the right spot to capture the photo. I wouldn't put it past them...
MB said...
It seems like it would be fairly easy to compare these photos to his prior work and see if he's been consistent about not retouching photos or if this is a newly-found "ethical" stance.
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The prof is retired.
She doesn't put in the work anymore...
and it shows. Lol. She tosses out red meat is all.
Dude1394 said...
It is a horrible picture and I do not believe him when he said he is not biased. This is one of the photos that my wife would make me delete. Me too for that matter.
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She's still a pretty lady, you oaf.
You really think women look wonderful up close after they'd had work done? Why do you think -- even with no work -- ann doesn't post any pics of herself except in very very small cameos? She can't handle honest aging and knows how quickly you fellas would turn on her if you saw her as she was...
Let's outlaw cosmetic surgery for everyone? Fair is fair.
RCOCEAN II said...
Leftwing photographer tries to make anyone he dislikes look ugly. News at 11.
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She looks beautiful if you step back far enough. Young and lovely, they say... lololol. I'm curious if ann's sons have had work done. Bet Chrissy has!
November inflation rate dropped to 2.7% from 3% in September.
Wak attacked kak gonna hit teh crack .
I question the photographer’s veracity.
His basic explanation is that he just wanted to present unretouched, unfiltered photos of how these people look in real life.
But these are zoomed close-ups. Meeting these people in real life, you would not be seeing them at 5x, counting every pore. That’s not “normal.”
Secondly, I am not a professional photographer but the one black and white photo of Rubio seemed to have some sort of filter on it because it shows what appears to be sun-damaged areas. This is similar to photographs taken of my skin at my dermatologist using special lighting, which revealed sun damage that is almost invisible to the naked eye.
Finally, he claims that he has taken the same kinds of closeups of the Obamas. These photos were not included in an article attempting to counter the accusation that the photographer was biased. Are there really the same photos of Obamas, showing every chin hair and pore?
MadisonMan,
**Republican** women.
Please save yourself, and don't try this with (D) women. (Evidence: Michelle O, Jill B)
Harsh lighting affects visual perception of even the most beautiful people. Sadly, this photograph was intended to hurt the portrayed.
I enjoyed the comments to the article, all the WaPo readers gleeful at how "evil" the subjects look in those photos. So VF and WaPo are serving their readers' TDS, while the rest of us just laugh at them.
I love blue eyes. Mrs Duffy’s blue Swedish eyes are captivating. Part of the reason I married her 37 years ago..
Susie looks like the only one in Trump’s female orbit who isn’t hot. I like her quotes. Vance likes conspiracy theories. Yep, the press conspired to not mention Biden’s cognitive decline. Bondi screwed up the Epstein files, yup, Trump has a grandiose personality usually fueled by alcohol, of course, but without the booze. Wonderful quotes.
Mark Judge has the appropriate response:
In the spring of 1985, I walked into my father’s office on the seventh floor of National Geographic magazine and found myself face to face with what would arguably become the most famous photograph in the history of the magazine. “Afghan Girl” is a portrait of Sharbat Gula, an Afghan refugee in Pakistan during the Soviet–Afghan War. The photograph was taken by photojournalist Steve McCurry near the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
"Aghan Girl” would appear in the upcoming June 1985 issue of National Geographic. My father had it pinned to a large board he used in his office to track upcoming stories. I remember walking into Dad’s office and then stopping, stunned, when I saw the amazing photograph. “Yeah, I know,” my dad said. He didn’t need to elaborate. It was a spectacular shot.
I grew up surrounded by National Geographic writers and photographers, so I know when a photographer has done a hit job on someone. And Christopher Anderson of Vanity Fair has done a hit job on the Trump White House with his photographs that accompany a new article about White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. In one photograph, Wiles looks startled. In another, Secretary of State Marco Rubio leans forward, staring at a lamp. Vice President J.D. Vance is shot in an extreme close-up, as is Karoline Leavitt’s. Leavitt, a very attractive woman, is made to look particularly gruesome. “People seem to be shocked that I didn’t use Photoshop to retouch out blemishes and her injection marks,” Anderson told the Washington Post. I find it shocking that someone would expect me to retouch out those things.” Anderson claims that his style is meant to “cut through” the artifice of most political portraits.
Nonsense. Christopher Anderson did not shoot Leavitt that way to reveal the human being behind her public persona. He did it to make her look like a monster. Secretary Rubio’s picture is meant to make him look foolish. Same with Susie Wiles. It’s another in a long list of artistic callings that have been corrupted by left-wing politics. Novels, TV shows, movies, poetry, photography - everything must now serve The State and make those who resist look demonic.
The great photographers I grew up with were inspired to make their subjects look human and dignified, even in moments of conflict.
Yup
Leavitt. I might have figured it out.
Ohhhh. Great. So every time Vanity Fair has published a retouched photo of anyone, it’s been a lie and a violation of journalistic ethics. I like this rule. Let’s see all the original, not retouched photos of every politician Vanity Fair has ever published to see how often they’ve been lying.
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