Portraits of Power

I was just waiting to tear this artist up after watching him revealing his political leanings and bias through his work. However, it seems that he was pretty fair and there did not appear to be any difference in his portrayal of Democrats and Republicans. It doesn't seem that he had any goal, but, he was simply interested in the concept of power. He was able to photograph many different people, but I was interested in hearing about what people he asked to photograph but was turned down.

One part that stood out to me was the photograph of Rove, that the subject was very upset about. He seemed to feel that the photographer was out to get him. I think he should grow up and just realize that photographer was interested in taking a photograph of a natural moment in time. I don't think he was trying to make Rove look bad, for not taking a photograph that is a carbon-copy of virtually every other photograph of American politicians. It was also funny when Rove was so upset that he told the interviewer to pass it on to the photographer that he thought the photographer was trying to make him look stupid and the interviewer had to tell him that he was dead. I wouldn't object at all if a similar photograph was published of me. In fact I would feel good to know that such a great photographer wanted to photograph me.

One of the photographer's final works before he died, was a picture of Obama, which the lecturers gave us a little context for by reading the photographer's commentary. It would seem like a strange bit of luck or foreknowledge that he said that Obama would run for president someday. However, I wonder how much availability heuristic plays into this- perhaps the photographer had other works from 2004 that went by unnoticed, because they retroactively did not have similar significance.