Photographing A Woman President

Getting Used To A New Figurehead

Adding to my post from a month ago, here's another way to look at the same subject:

The first time I see a photograph of Hillary Clinton these days I experience a slight shock as I adjust to the new face of national leadership.  Maybe I experienced something similar when Barack Obama was about to become president; I don't remember.

The reason I think it might be different this time around is because, generally speaking, women have contextual, rather than abstract minds.  We expect them to be living in-the-moment, at least more so than men--again generally speaking.  Meanwhile, photography is abstract experience.  We could be handed a photograph of people getting wet in a rainstorm, and we're sitting in the sunshine wishing it would hurry up and rain.  So, in adjusting to a new figurehead, who's a woman, and someone we'll eventually become quite used to seeing, there's perhaps an extra hurdle to overcome.  Thus the slightly jarring, out-of-context shock we get when we see Hillary and realize she's likely to become president.

Could it also work the other way?  Once Hillary is elected, as is thought likely to happen, could the real Hillary appear, relaxed and in-the-moment?  One might think so, as the context in that case would be manifest victory; while beforehand, seeming confident, prior to the election, would be non-contextual.

If a change is truly going to come this November, we might then see a bit of this Hillary.