Mark Peterson traces the arc of this strange, sometimes shameless, presidential election in his new book, Political Theatre. He captured the rallies, the stump speeches, and the debates of the primaries and general election. But he also trained his camera on the forces that would end up shaping this campaign — tea-party rallies, for example — long before anyone had likely uttered the words “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
Peterson says he wanted to show the artifice of campaigning. “How superficial or how orchestrated the events really are,” he adds. His goal was to find one detail that summed up each candidate’s essence. Take that first photo above: a close-up of Chris Christie’s mouth.
Peterson says he’ll continue to photograph the race through Election Day and up to the inauguration — though he admits he may have already taken enough photos of Donald Trump. —Jen Kirby
Photos from Political Theatre, published by Steidl.
