It is a photograph that seems almost impossible: moments after a bullet grazes his ear, a former US president stands with his fist raised defiantly. The sky behind him is clear blue and an American flag flies overhead, fully in frame. The expressions on the faces of each secret service agents are clear and a smear of blood runs from Donald Trump’s ear to his cheek.
The photograph was taken by Evan Vucci, chief Washington photographer for the Associated Press. Vucci has been covering Trump since his candidacy eight years ago and in 2020 won a Pulitzer for a photograph of protests after George Floyd’s death.
“I heard the shots. So I ran to the stage as the Secret Service agents were starting to cover President Trump up. They were coming up on the stage from all different directions, and they were going on top of him. I went to the front, side of the stage and I started photographing everything I could,” says Vucci, who told the Guardian he has covered hundreds of rallies like the one in Pennsylvania on Sunday.
More agents arrived, he said, and what appeared to be a Swat team.
“I started thinking, OK, what’s going to happen next? Where is he going to go? Where do I need to be? Where do I need to stand? What is going to happen?”
“The job is all about anticipation,” Vucci says.
Vucci started thinking about the evacuation route. It would be on the other side of the stage, the quickest way to Trump’s SUV. He positioned himself at the stairs near the stage.
The job of the secret service agents is “to stop Trump from being seen,” he says. When Trump stood up, and the agents were still trying to cover him, says Vucci, but Trump, “was kind of fighting his way to the front.”
Audio shows that while he was surrounded by secret service agents, Trump asked to first get his shoes. “OK. One shoe’s there,” an agent says. “Come on, Let’s get the shoe.”
Then Trump says, “Wait, wait, wait wait.” He touches his hair, reaches his right hand through the barrier formed by the secret service agents, and lifts his fist. Grimacing, he says, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”.
Vucci says he “was somewhat taken aback” when Trump raised his fist, but there was only one thing was running through his mind: “Slow down, think, compose. Slow down, think, compose.”
Vucci’s camera was connected to a hotspot and automatically sent photographs back to his editor as he took them. “Just keep sending,” his editor told him.
Once Trump had left in the SUV, Vucci and other photographers were pulled into a tent, he says. They had zero mobile phone signal, so it was only about 45 minutes later, when Vucci emerged into an empty parking lot, that he saw the image for the first time, on social media.
“The thing about photography is two people can see the exact same image and have a completely different reaction.”
But what makes it so striking is “the blood on the face, it’s the flag, the raised fist.”
“A lot of strong, strong emotions are happening in that image, and I think that’s what people are reacting to.”
‘The composition is fantastic’
“There are some photos which are captured in the intense heat of a news story breaking which can actually slow it down. And that was one of them,” says Guardian Australia’s photo editor, Carly Earl.
Often, photographers covering breaking news won’t know that they’ve taken a perfect photograph, but as an editor, when you see it, you think, “Jackpot”.
In the case of Vucci’s photograph it’s about leading the viewer’s eye.
“It leads you back in, almost like a vortex. Trump’s face is what you’re constantly drawn to, but then the action around him is like a frame,” says Earl, adding that the “composition is fantastic.”
The fact that he’s got the depth of field here means that all of the faces are pin sharp, she says, and so “you get to engage with what they’re feeling as well, not just Trump.”
The arm on the bottom right of the frame shows the viewer that there is action happening around the frame, out of view, she says.
The Atlantic called it, “undeniably one of the great compositions in US photographic history,” while a senior New York Times journalist said it was, “The pinnacle of photojournalism. A perfectly framed and composed image of historic breaking news.”
When you’re covering politics, Vucci says, “Something weird can happen at any moment”.
But there is also a lot of repetition. “Every day is almost the same: a lectern, a politician speaking.”
So you’re constantly trying to work out how to do things differently, he says.
“That’s the million dollar question in Washington when you’re covering politics.”
Vucci has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – as well as both the Trump and Biden presidencies. Asked which of the thousands and thousands of his pictures he is proudest of, he laughs. “The next one, the next one,” he says.