[There’s a lot of paw-wringing going on in The Jungle these days, mostly from the nightly news which brings us new levels of absurdity on a daily basis. Mostly we leave politics to the politicians, but this seems to be one guy who is not following the usual playbook. SB SM]
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How a political portrait comes together: light, tension, and a little magic.
Aug 19, 2025
Photographing politicians means running up against a wall of control. Campaign teams rehearse every gesture, the wardrobe defaults to suits and ties, and the result is portraits that retain the stale look of a corporate headshot. The challenge for the photographer is to bulldoze through all these protective layers and reveal the psychological tension behind the rigid spectacle of a political portrait. Platon’s iconic image of Bill Clinton happened when he asked the president to “show him some love.” I’ve never been adept at that kind of hustle, so when TIME asked me to shoot Mamdani for their cover, I concocted a plan based on my usual trifecta of light, color, and magic.
Political portraits also require a kind of ideological discipline. It’s important that my own political affiliations don’t influence the type of portrait I’m making, whether I’m working with Democrats or Republicans. It’s not easy to let go of preconceived notions, especially when the person in front of you carries a loaded public narrative, but it’s necessary to avoid portraits that are either pandering or punishing. I like to let people reveal themselves to the camera, then amplify the vibes I’m getting. If someone is gracious and pleasant during the shoot, the photos will reflect that. When the subject is standoffish or inauthentic, the camera will call their bluff. The worst are the politicians who try to control the narrative too tightly. They underestimate the viewer and end up shooting themselves in the foot, because people always pick up on a lack of vulnerability and humility. It’s better to come off as an asshole than a wax figure.
I photographed Mamdani over two days. The first began with a walk through Madison Square Park, a stop at his office, and a train ride to Times Square for a press event. Walking through the city was a fascinating experience. I have photographed different celebrities in the streets of NYC, and the response from my fellow New Yorkers is always one of cool detachment. We recognize, we acknowledge, and we pretend not to care. But with Mamdani it was different. All kinds of people around us, from a young woman on a Citi Bike to a group of construction workers, were losing their nonchalant exterior, shouting words of support, giving high-fives, and trying to make selfies happen. The mood was jubilant.
The whole time, we were accompanied by two police detectives, and at first I wondered why this level of security was necessary, since everyone we passed was beaming with positivity. But as we neared the subway, a well-dressed woman brushed up against Mamdani and threw “Antisemite!” directly in his face. Just a minute later, a middle-aged man shouted another obscenity. The change on Mamdani’s face was instant, going from animated to somber. It was interesting to observe a politician visibly affected by negative comments, and I made a mental note for the studio portrait session scheduled for the next day. It felt to me that Mamdani hadn’t constructed the kind of impenetrable, polished exterior I’ve seen in many political figures I’ve worked with, and that vulnerability might be something I could use to my advantage for the portrait.
The biggest challenge with Mamdani was avoiding an image that looked like a campaign shot, which is always a hard sell. I researched as many formal portraits of him as I could find, including the recent New York Magazine cover by Adam Dowling. I liked that cover, but the half-smiling expression made him look just a bit smug, which works fine for a home turf magazine showcasing someone who just beat Cuomo in an unprecedented race but felt less fitting for a national cover. I didn’t want him smiling at all, which I knew could be a challenge for someone who is naturally enthusiastic in front of a camera. The last time I dealt with the impenetrable smile of a politician was when I photographed Doug Ford in Toronto for the Atlantic. No matter what direction I gave, his expression stayed locked, and the only photo I was able to use came from the interview, when Ford was so engaged with the questions that he forgot to pose. In contrast, Mamdani’s smile seemed like an instinctual response to the camera rather than a learned gesture, but it was still something I needed to maneuver around.
Everything ran late, and instead of the leisurely thirty minutes that was planned, the portrait session boiled down to less than twenty. In the past, I would have panicked, but I’ve been learning to be a honey badger and stay externally calm (while still panicking on the inside). Within the first five minutes, I could tell that Mamdani, though accommodating, was too tense to make anything good happen, so I pivoted and asked if he wanted to see a bit of magic. His answer was an immediate “Yes.”
For those who’ve been reading me for a while, you know that my secret weapon is Shane Cobalt, an incredible sleight-of-hand magician who seems to break the laws of physics by making regular objects appear and disappear right in front of your eyes. When Shane made five cards vanish into thin air, I saw Mamdani visibly recalibrate in both his expression and posture. From that point on, the shoot started to flow.
The blue/cyan palette for the portrait was chosen through a process of elimination. Red carried too much political baggage. Neither yellow nor green felt right, so I went with a blue and cyan combination. It worked because I didn’t want the photo to resolve too easily. Cyan has that slightly unnatural cast that keeps things suspended and resists neat categorizing into political affiliations.
At some point during the shoot, I asked Mamdani to bring his hands up to his tie so I could get them into the frame. I wrote about photographing hands in a past newsletter, and I’ve been playing with that idea in all my recent assignments. I wasn’t sure if it would work, and was surprised that this particular gesture ended up as the cover shot. Since I’m not a fan of suits, many of the portraits, including the cover, were shot with a prism, which worked like a magic eraser, masking the material with a wash of color glare. The effect is subtle, but it adds a bit of mystery and ambiguity to an otherwise straightforward frame.
Every politician fights to maintain control of their image, and every photographer is looking for a crack in the surface. I didn’t want to glamorize or sanitize, but I also didn’t want to trap Mamdani in a defined political narrative. My goal was to make a portrait that holds tension and doesn’t allow an easy interpretation. What surprised me most was how little polish Mamdani seemed to have, at least compared to other politicians I’ve photographed. The camera often hits a wall and reflects back a predetermined agenda. With him, there was still calculation, but also something unguarded, a kind of excited nervousness. The shoot had a fluidity that is rare with someone in the middle of a political spotlight, and the final portraits reflected the push and pull of a genuine collaboration.
