Your Turn: The Double Obamas

(Is photogenic still a word?) This guy is way more artistic than the other models on the runway, so photographers will quite naturally slip into Art mode instead of the more common (and boring) Documentary style.

The Republicans are going to build up the theme that the Obama we see is not the real Obama. It’s the one we don’t know that’s going to harm America, y’see.
The double images validate the perception that something’s not quite on the up and up with Obama. As in Plato’s allegory of the cave, we are seeing only a shadow. Oh my. There’s another racist word for you.

How many times can one shoot the power shot during the speech? Gotta look for something, anything, else, even if just to break up the boredom.
Who wouldn’t take advantage of that situation?
I don’t see any ulterior motive. There’s no time for that on the trail when there are 15 photogs all trying to get in your space for the shot, and 15 pencil people in your way. Not even space to pop the flash in the second pic. Too far away.
Now, why there are no pix of the kiddie cart behind his bike last weekend, that’s an oversight either on the part of the shooters or the editors. If there were pix of Sasha in the cart behind her dad, I haven’t seen them yet.

The message I get from these photos is that Obama is two-faced. Also, the reflected Obama is always darker than Obama in real life; again with the scary black man imagery.

Emily, Morning Joe ran a short video clip this morning of Obama biking with the kiddie cart behind him, so it would be possible to show a screen grab if desired.

Since Obama’s Yin-yang is so well balanced it is easy to photograph. The reason you don’t see this type of photo with GOP personalities so much is because vampires and werewolfs don’t cast a reflection.

Since you didn’t mention it in your post, I’ll also bring up this image from last year for consideration:
/files/bagnews/images/JJ-BA.jpg

You’re more likely to see pictures like this of Obama because Count McCain doesn’t cast a reflection.

To me, the first one he looks really small, like a little boy getting out of a big car.
Kevin: your Count McCain comment left me ROTFLMAO

It’s like Spiderman and EVIL Spiderman! Ooh, scary!!!

Count McCain! I’ll take it!
You guys. Love your sense of humor.

It’s as if these photographers, like some non artist folk I’ve spoken to during the course of this campaign, feel that Obama’s “too good to be true.” They’ve assigned themselves the task of searching for his anima. In the bottom image, it’s like the photographer “must know” what “his other half”(expression) is doing when Obama thinks it’s safe from the camera.

I love all these comments. But sometimes you have to put yourself in the place of the photo editor of the publication. I was flabbergasted to learn that they may see 6-10,000 photos per day. And they all also look at many other publications’ photos. So if little ripples of similarity run through their choices, or if the seem to be seeking something a little different all the time, you could put it down to a combination of competitiveness and boredom.
Still, Obama is very photogenic [if it isn't still a word, we can bring it back], and so is a good model for all sorts of shots.

Good God ! ! !
You take the freaking shot ! ! !

I side with those who see these photos as positive rather than negative. As if they can’t get enough of him, double him up. The reflections are all imperfect, a good but aesthetically pleasing reminder that Mr. Goodlooking is not perfect, but, as KansasKowboy says, his yin and yang are balanced.

Double-speak and narcissism. What politician would get anywhere without those qualities?

Obama is the most iconic candidate for President — the most iconic politician, really — in FORTY years. Forty. Ok, closer to fifty.
Each and every image of him says “here is what the black man who could be president looks like.” His visage means something in a way that no face has meant something since Frederick Douglas proved that black people can be awesome.
The double Obamas are happening probably because photographers can feel that there is something deep and meaningful about his image that is completely unrivaled in modern experience.
After all, the double image (especially facing each other) is a completely pedestrian motif within art when you need to indicate someone confronting the power (or impermanence or shortcoming of or uncontrollability or existential immediacy or fill in the blank) of their own image. It’s pretty straightforward.
What is different is Obama. He could (and probably will) be the First Black President.
And in this context, blackness is a quality of the face. That is how we tool-using cousins of apes and chimpanzees know our own. By the face. So here he is seeing his own face or generating his own face or emerging from his own face, and each time it tells us something about why he is important. It also points at a certain topic of mystery — that being “why is it so?” We cannot say why he is different (after all, no other black man could possibly be president any time soon) but we can wonder at his face. Perhaps it has clues…. but no, really we’re just getting sidetracked by an artifact of how we understand what we think we know.

These people are not geniuses! It is pretty simple, the message is that Obama is “two faced”. They are planting a very obvious doubt about his motives and ethics.