THESTUFFLIZLEELIKES

There is a crazy story by Vanity Fair about Trump staffers.

And some of the photography was... interesting.

Including these wild facial close ups.

There is ZERO retouching done on these. Which is very unusual for photos taken this close up. The expressions chosen are very odd. The lighting is a ring flash very far away (probably to create a catchlight in the eyes) and then another diffused light source from the side. The ring flash was placed below their eye line, so you get a tiny bit of that creepy uplighting like in a Frankenstein movie. And neither light source was placed very close so the harder light really shows every pore and wrinkle and lip filler injection site. (See: why hard light is bad for porn.)

Basically, he used the opposite of every technique one would employ to create a flattering photo.

But the reason I think this photographer twisted the knife to make these photos look worse was his use of white balance on Karoline Leavitt and Susie Wiles.

If you want to make someone look sickly and demonic, you make their skin tone less warm and add green. When I corrected the white balance on the photos, I discovered the photographer reduced warmth by about 15% and increased green by about 45%.

This is not a camera setting oopsie.

This is not artistic color grading.

This is a photographer thinking, "I'm gonna make these bitches green."

And when you see the photos adjusted to a neutral white balance, this act of photographic sabotage becomes clear.

The only other explanation would be that this photographer is incompetent. But when you look at his other portraits of them, they are quite well done and properly color graded.

His book was called "Stump" and he extensively used this close up style of photo with no retouching and unflattering light.

His photo of Hillary was... intense.

Everyone is talking about the extreme, crunchy detail but no one is talking about the green. I have searched a great deal of his portfolio and I could not find a single example of him making people green.

I think his book gave him the precedent to say, "This is just my thing!" But I do think there is subtext where he is like, "I made these fascist bitches green."

His quote about Steven Miller was very telling.