Vanity fair VS politician circus

The vanity fair of the internet

My name is Andrey Zheludkov. I am a professional photographer and the founder and editor of the hand-made.world project.

Vanity Fair published a series of portraits of key figures in Donald Trump’s administration — and within hours the images spread across social media not as an example of glossy aesthetics, but as a source of anxiety, shock, and sarcasm. Users called the shots “jumpscare,” complained about the lack of trigger warnings, and competed in defining how “devilish” those close-ups looked.

Over the following days, hundreds of websites produced articles in the same tone — how such pictures were approved, how VF dared to show them, and how bold and innovative the photographer’s approach was toward depicting politicians.

The author of this storm in a teacup was Christopher Anderson — a photographer with an imposing reputation, whose work has been published in The New YorkTimes, Esquire and The Wall Street Journal.

In fact, it was the insane volume of discussions on x.com, FB, IG and Threads that pushed me to write this piece. Unfortunately, the open launch of hand-made.world will happen only in three months, but I believe this subject will remain interesting even after it stops being hot.

The thing is: absolutely everything I’ve read in articles and social networks is nonsense.

First — “How did he even get there?”

This question mostly comes from photographers who have no experience shooting anything of this scale. They are 200% sure that if they were in Anderson’s place, they would produce something much better. But “better” is not the point.

One must understand that Vanity Fair itself is much larger as an institution than any current — or past — presidential administration. They have written about all previous administrations and all previous presidents, and they will still be here after the 2028 election.

Same goes for Christopher Anderson — an independent figure, not tied to any ruling team. He has photographed wars, refugees, political campaigns, leaders of different eras and countries. His work outlives cabinet rotations, because it’s not about support or attack — it’s about a focused look at people, at power, at fear and courage. This experience allows him to speak with any administration as an equal — through the camera, without curtsies.

Second — releasing such material is not just the photographer’s work. It is editorial policy and strategy. Editors and photo editors are involved. Turning a bunch of frames into conventional portraits is not difficult — a competent retoucher can do that in an hour.

And those “unflattering” extreme close-ups? They could simply avoid publishing them, right?

And here we arrive at my third point.

Anderson used his signature extreme close-up manner: the viewer sees every freckle, every line of skin, every irregularity in makeup. This is not new. It is not new to photography, not new to political portraiture, and not new to Anderson himself.

And it has nothing to do with photographing “Trump’s people.”

Open his other images — for example, in his book Stamp. You will see the same thing there. The same portraits of Democrats, Republicans, even their wives and children.

Anderson constantly shoots at 300–500 mm, constantly produces high-contrast, unretouched facial close-ups.

I can understand thousands of regular social media viewers, non-specialists. They really saw such institutional portraits for the first time and yes, they rushed to discuss them while the topic was viral and hot.

And that’s great. When else do we have a chance to discuss — at scale, even with exaggerations — what is happening in professional photography? When else do ordinary people get a chance to view things from a different angle and try to understand the motivation of a photographer and an editor?

But large online outlets trampling over the subject in pursuit of clicks, without deep analysis? Your job is to write for a non-photographic audience and help them grasp what VF and Anderson actually did. This is a reason to think about how and why such images are made, what labels we attach to the author, and why photography still matters.

In an era of billions of daily images — we must talk about good photography. Talk with examples, with authority.

And what — nobody has ever been banned from the White House before? And only a few years later Heisler was photographing again in Bush Jr.’s White House.

Here at hand-made.world we want to speak about photography. Not about hype.

Now let’s talk about the author of this scandalous shoot. A figure so multifaceted and interesting that he deserves a separate article.