The original iconic image I chose (captured by Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer) was of Obama, Biden, and the national security team waiting on an update on the mission to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden. Through my manipulation of this image, I want to show the juxtaposition between the action taking place in the photo and Trump’s tendency to Tweet complaints without doing anything about it.
(Image courtesy of Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer)
To do this, I pasted the iconic image onto a photo of a television in a dark room. I then cut out and pasted a photo of Trump’s own hands holding his smartphone to make it appear as if he was lounging comfortably while watching the mission take place on screen. Finally, I recreated Trump’s original Tweet, which was a critique of Obama’s approach to the mission, by erasing what was on his smartphone and replacing it with text and an image. I tried to incorporate the feedback I received in class, which was to make it clear that Trump was in the process of crafting the Tweet, by adding a text cursor at the end of the text. I also adjusted the coloring of all the elements to match the background and added blur and grain to the screens (TV and phone) to make them more realistic.
(Image courtesy of Replacement Remotes Blog)
(Image courtesy of Vanity Fair)
Through showing both the action happening on the TV and Trump’s complacent Tweeting on his phone in the same frame, I hope to convey the immediacy of people’s online reactions (often negative) to political decisions — in this case, Trump’s reactions to anything Obama did during his presidency. By portraying Trump as under a blanket and taking part in leisurely activities, like using social media and watching TV, I want to emphasize the lack of thought and work that goes into a hate Tweet. I also want to show how politically polarized social media often is. The message that I hope to get across through this image manipulation is essentially: think before you Tweet.
Yulia's ASCJ 200 Blog 
