In a world of moving pictures, photographs capture indelible moments in Trump assassination attempt

The photograph of a bloodied Donald Trump with his fist in the air and an American flag looming in the background is quickly emerging as the pivotal image of Saturday’s shooting, and it wouldn’t exist without a journalist who acted quickly and on a hunch.

Video of the assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally filled television screens before it was even clear what had happened. Yet the work of The Associated Press’ Evan Vucci, Getty’s Anna Moneymaker and Doug Mills of The New York Times — whose picture caught apparent evidence of a bullet whizzing past Trump’s head — proved the enduring potency of still photography in a world driven by a flood of moving pictures.

Vucci’s image, one of many he took on Saturday, could also have political implications from many directions — as indelible images often do in the days and years after seismic events happen.

“Without question, Evan’s photo will become the definitive photo from the (assassination) attempt,” said Patrick Witty, a former photo editor at Time, The New York Times and National Geographic. “It captures a range of complex details and emotions in one still image — the defiantly raised fist, the blood, the agents clamoring to push Trump off stage and, most importantly, the flag. That’s what elevates the photo.”

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The New York Post ran the photo across the tabloid’s front page on Sunday with a headline describing the former president as “bloodied but unbowed.” Time magazine has put it on its cover. “A legendary American photograph,” The Atlantic wrote in a headline over a story about the image.

It all made one thing clear: After more than 175 years of photography, freezing a moment in time for posterity remains as powerful as recounting it in video — and, sometimes, even more so.

An immediate recognition of the power of the captured moment

Many news photographers, including AP’s Gene Puskar, were on assignment in various locations around Saturday’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. Vucci was one of four stationed between the stage and audience. Covering a political rally is a routine assignment the Washington-based journalist has done hundreds of times; left unspoken is the duty to be in position if history beckons in the manner that it did Saturday.

When he heard popping sounds, Vucci, who has covered combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he knew instantly it was gunfire. He rushed to the stage at Trump’s right, but his view of the former president was quickly blocked by Secret Service agents. He sensed that the agents would try to hustle Trump offstage and into a vehicle from the other side, so he darted over there.

From that position, he said, “everything kind of opened up for me.”

Trump’s attempts to rise to his feet and pump his fist gave Vucci a clear view of the ex-president. He said the blue sky and flag in the background were an important part of the composition. “I think that kind of told the story of where we are right now,” he said.

Witty, like some others, compared it to Joe Rosenthal’s AP photo of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in World War II — an image so memorable to so many that it inspired a memorial.

“I think it will last and come to symbolize the time that we’re in,” said Ron Burnett, former president of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design and an expert on images.

The intersection of imagery and politics

The presence of the flag may prove a lightning rod, because it also makes the photo a potent political image — in keeping with the increased politicization of the Stars and Stripes in the years since the 9/11 attacks. “Already one of the most iconic photographs in American history — and one that I suspect will propel Donald Trump back to the White House,” British journalist Piers Morgan wrote on X.

The photo with the full flag from Saturday has already been used 2,327 times by Sunday evening, while another Vucci image — one without the full flag — had been used 1,759 times by AP media customers, the news organization said. Typically, the most-used photo for a full week is seen 700 or 800 times.

It’s not hard to imagine the flag-draped image being seen in Trump campaign advertisements or paraphernalia, much like his mug shot from his Georgia arrest quickly did. At least one website was already selling T-shirts with the photo on them.

“I can see it being used in a whole variety of ways as part of the entourage of images that he surrounds himself with,” said Burnett, who marveled at Trump’s ability to seemingly be conscious of how it would all look in the midst of such a traumatic experience.

Vucci said that how the image is used in the public discourse is not for him to worry about. “The way I look at it is, I was present and I did my job,” said Vucci, who won a 2021 Pulitzer Prize for his work covering demonstrations following the George Floyd shooting. “I kept my head and I told the story.”

There was other impressive work by photographers at the scene. Getty’s Moneymaker, for example, caught an extraordinarily intimate image of Trump on the floor of the stage, taken peephole-style through the legs of a Secret Service agent shielding him.

Mills’ photograph for The Times is one of a series that shows Trump reaching for his ear after it had been hit. In one of them, barely visible unless the photo is blown up, there’s a streak behind Trump’s head that likely illustrates the displacement of air from a fast-moving projectile, according to a retired FBI special agent quoted in the newspaper. The Times did not discuss the issue on Sunday.

The agent, Michael Harrigan, told the newspaper: “Given the circumstances, if that’s not showing the bullet’s path through the air, I don’t know what else it would be.”

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder.