• Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    10 hours ago

    The Vance one is the worst official picture I have ever seen.

    Nothing looks right, he looks like somebody assembled his body from about 5 different pictures of other people. It was clearly taken in one shot by somebody who has never used a camera before. They spent the whole day getting Trump’s shitty glare just right for His Majesty and then at the last minute went “oh yeah, I’m supposed to get a photo of this cunt too”.

  • RagingSnarkasm@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    “And they go hard,” a press release from the transition said about the portraits.

    Directing, or even allowing, your transition team to say you “go hard” means you literally do not go hard.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      The biggest difference is that Count Vigo already won and there is no heroic group of wisecrackers with handheld plasma cannons to do anything about it.

    • Linktank
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      1 day ago

      Yeah, the painting looks intimidating and intelligent.

  • TheDemonBuer@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Jesus, Trump thinks he’s Walter White. I mean, Trump is a malignant narcissist, egomaniac, who is simultaneously a pathetic loser and a dangerous, power hungry, psychopath, but at least Heisenberg knew chemistry. Mr. White was at least educated, and he could run a successful business. Does Trump even know what chemistry is?

  • Corngood@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Vance’s head continues to widen, while Trump has found the briefcase from Pulp Fiction.

  • tal
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    1 day ago

    The Vance one looks reasonably normal, but for Trump…I’m kind of surprised that that’s how Trump wants history to see him.

      • tal
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        1 day ago

        It’s not even the underlighting. Like, his hair looks lopsided, his eyes aren’t symmetrical, the camera is looking down at him…like, this was his official portrait from Term 1:

        https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Donald_Trump_official_portrait.jpg

        That’s far more conventional.

        Looking at a Fox News article comparing the two side-by-side, I guess that the idea with his new portrait is to evoke his mugshot, as it’s posed similarly:

        But whatever the political benefit his campaign perceives it as, the campaign is over. He’s in (well, going to be in) office. Having done that, do you truly want to try to evoke a mugshot as your legacy?

        EDIT: For contrast, here are the portraits of all prior presidents:

        https://www.whitehousehistory.org/galleries/presidential-portraits

        The only other one that’s really as oddball as that is JFK’s, and I’d sure rather have something like JFK’s than Trump’s.

        • Capt. Wolf@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I do have to say, we need to go back to painted portraits… They look so much classier and dignified. Fitting for a position of power. Obama’s looks like a cardboard standee. Biden’s is alright until you look at his face too much. Trump’s first looks like he’s posing for employee of the month. His second looks, well yeah, it looks like his just like mugshot. They’re like school yearbook photos…

          • tal
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            3 hours ago

            Obama’s is actually a hyperrealistic painting, based on the label. Probably directly based on a photograph, but not itself a photograph. I don’t think I’d seen it prior to this.

            Trump Term 1 looks like the first time we dropped the painting as a medium for the photograph.

            Hah. I was looking at them again and realized that they got much lighter, and I just realized what I bet that was.

            Most of the original paintings are done indoors, and almost all of those are dark. The light ones are outside. The only exception is #13, Millard Filmore. Then, suddenly, at Theodore Roosevelt, all of the portraits are indoors…but almost all are bright.

            I realized that that’s right about when electrical lighting showed up. It looks like the White House got electric lights in 1891, during Harrison’s term:

            President Benjamin Harrison and First Lady Caroline Harrison refused to operate the switches because they feared being shocked and left the operation of the electric lights to the domestic staff.

            I assume that Harrison’s portrait, done at the beginning of his term, would have predated that.

            William McKinley was after that and was also dark – I don’t know why. Maybe tradition. But it’s the final one. After that, virtually everyone is in bright environments.