{"id":190495,"date":"2025-12-18T03:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/190495\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T03:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T03:05:07","slug":"vanity-fair-photographer-defends-white-house-close-up-shots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/190495\/","title":{"rendered":"Vanity Fair Photographer Defends White House Close-Up Shots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Anderson, the photographer whose close-ups of top White House officials were featured in a bombshell Vanity Fair<\/a> article published this week, is defending his work after his portrait subjects were brutally dragged online. <\/p>\n

\u201cVery close-up portraiture has been a fixture in a lot of my work over the years,\u201d Anderson told The Independent<\/a>. \u201cParticularly, political portraits that I\u2019ve done over the years. I like the idea of penetrating the theater of politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s photographs of seven members of President Donald Trump\u2019s inner circle, senior White House aide Stephen Miller<\/a>, Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> and Vice President JD Vance<\/a>, have divided people online and prompted viewers to dissect the details in their faces.<\/p>\n

Rubio slammed the portraits on X following online mockery, stating, \u201cIt is obvious to most people that Vanity Fair deliberately manipulated pictures and reported statements without context to try and make the WH team look bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is obvious to most people that Vanity Fair deliberately manipulated pictures and reported statements without context to try and make the WH team look bad <\/p>\n

And there is nobody more loyal or committed to President Trump\u2019s mission than Susie Wiles. She is one of the main reasons\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) December 17, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

And White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino<\/a> lashed out at anti-Trump political action committee The Lincoln Project after it made fun<\/a> of his hairstyle as, calling it a \u201cHitler youth ass haircut.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThey know exactly what referring to me as Hitler does with 2.8 million followers\u2014 These are some sick and twisted bastards,\u201d Scavino wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"DanDan Scavino and Marco Rubio have both spoken out amid the uproar around portraits published in Vanity Fair. They are pictured here in unrelated photos from Getty Images.<\/p>\n

The photos also drew criticism from others on the right<\/a>, with some contrasting Anderson\u2019s work<\/a> with a prior Vanity Fair photograph of Joe Biden\u2019<\/a>s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anderson told The Washington Post<\/a> he conceived of the close-up portraits \u201cmany years ago\u201d for his 2014 book \u201cStump.\u201d The book, he said, was \u201call close-ups\u201d and was his \u201cattempt to circumnavigate the stage-managed image of politics and cut through the image that the public relations team wants to be presented.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know there\u2019s a lot to be made with, \u2018Oh, he intentionally is trying to make people look bad\u2019 and that kind of thing \u2014 that\u2019s not the case,\u201d Anderson argued in his interview with the Independent. \u201cIf you look at my photograph work, I\u2019ve done a lot of close-ups in the same style with people of all political stripes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The official whose portrait drew the most attention was press secretary Karoline Leavitt<\/a>, who Vanity Fair labeled \u201cThe Mouth Piece,\u201d with many commenting on marks that appeared to be lip injection sites on her upper lip. <\/p>\n

\u201cGenius. The injection marks really sing in this one!\u201d one comment with over 6,000 likes read.<\/p>\n

But the mockery of Leavitt has sparked its own backlash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t the woke own you think it is,\u201d one X user wrote, in response to a post from the Democratic National Committee sharing Leavitt\u2019s portrait<\/a>. \u201cUtilizing misogyny (this post mocks her looks, specifically related to age) against bad women is still proliferating misogyny. To oppose misogyny is to oppose the existence of misogyny as an available tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KarolineKaroline Leavitt was another Trump official photographed in extreme detail by photographer Christopher Anderson. She is seen here in a different image by Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds.<\/p>\n

ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Another read, \u201cI think it\u2019s crazy to comment on a woman\u2019s (no matter the woman) appearance to perpetuate the idea that \u00ab looking old \u00bb is the worst thing that could happen to us. 28 doesn\u2019t look the same for everyone, move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson responded to the Leavitt controversy in his interview with The Washington Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople seem to be shocked that I didn\u2019t use Photoshop to retouch out blemishes and her injection marks. I find it shocking that someone would expect me to retouch out those things,\u201d he said, adding that Leavitt had her own \u201cpersonal groomer\u201d at the shoot. <\/p>\n

He stated, \u201cI didn\u2019t put the injection sites on her.\u201d<\/p>\n