Decoding Donald Trump’s new official portrait

Seriously. Ominous. An “image message”.

Those are some of the details about the new official portrait of Donald Trump, taken by his chief photographer, Daniel Torok. In the photo, the president-elect wears a stern expression, his eyebrows played.

“The official portrait of the president is the most printed, most visible image of the president, ever,” former White House photographer Eric Draper told the BBC.

He worked for George W Bush throughout his eight-year presidency, taking both of his official portraits.

Mr Draper’s first impression of the Trump image was that it was “heavily manipulated” with studio lighting and post-shooting retouching.

The photo appears to use “monster” lighting, he added, to dramatically squint the president-elect from below and make his eyes pop.

The lighting gives the image an “ominous” look often seen in horror films, says Eliska Sky, a portrait photographer with the London Institute of Photography. He compared Trump’s portrayal to a boxer before a fight.

Lighting “suggests seriousness and intent”, according to Paul Duerinckx, senior lecturer in documentary photography at Swansea College of Art.

This image is striking, he added, because the light source in most photos comes from above, like the sun or ceiling lights, and flipping the source in this photo “tends to really have an effect on us”.