Trump's Handwritten Notes in Close-up: Erin Scott on Her Long-Lens Shot

[progressoid]

Photographers Erin Scott and Mark Wilson managed to get the most talked-about photos at an impromptu White House press conference November 20, and captured nearly identical close-up photos of President Trump’s hand-written talking points about the day’s impeachment hearing. Scott’s image, distributed by Reuters, was quickly picked up by news media, and Wilson’s image, which was distributed by Getty, has appeared in news articles, feature stories and memes.

Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House the day EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified at a public impeachment hearing. To the reporters, Trump insisted that he had told Sondland in September that he wanted “no quid pro quo” from Ukraine officials. The photos by Scott and Wilson showed the notes, written in Sharpie on an Air Force One memo pad, that Trump held as he spoke.

Scott tells PDN she got the photo with a combination of “news judgement and my natural talent for being extremely nosy.” She says it’s unusual to see the President carrying anything, “especially notes,” when when he’s departing the White House (he was on his way to a photo op at an Apple plant in Texas). “The notes were immediately interesting,” Scott says. She shot the image with a Nikon Z6 with a Nikkor 80-400 lens.

“I sort of became obsessed with seeing the notes. I missed a ton of shots for it, great facial expressions, while I stayed focused on Trump’s left hand, waiting for him to wave it at the right angle.” A photo of the overall scene, taken by White House photographer Joyce N. Boghosian, shows that a tightly packed crowd of journalists were on the South Lawn waiting to hear if Trump spoke about Sondland’s testimony. Scott guesses that Wilson was to her left, behind the President.

Scott says, “I think notes can reveal more about a person than the filtered version the person might present in anticipation of being filmed or photographed.”

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https://pdnpulse.pdnonline.com/2019/11/trumps-handwritten-notes-in-close-up-erin-scott-on-her-long-lens-shot.html

[steventh]

1. Well done. Her patience really paid off. The note is interesting to see for lots of reasons.

I got to wondering why the note has mixed caps and lower case. I found an interesting site that considers possible reasons for that:

https://www.quora.com/Are-adults-who-write-in-a-mixture-of-upper-and-lower-case-letters-suffering-from-some-kind-of-learning-disability-or-are-they-simply-poorly-educated

Then I noticed that the letters are all caps except the lower case "i"s and "e"s. I wouldn't expect a narcissist, as 45 has been labeled by some, to use lower case "i"s.

[progressoid]

2. Interesting. I hadn't noticed that.

Also strange is that Melania's signature is oddly similar to his...

[steventh]

3. That's Melania's signature??? Agreed, that's a very strange similarity.

I'm no expert on handwriting, just a hobbyest, but it kinda looks like the two signatures were written by the same hand. I note that the "i" is carefully dotted in the purported Melania signature; 45 went through the detail of dotting all his "i"s in his "I want nothing" note.

It's hard to know much from a signature. I'd love to see extended text by Melania just for fun. So I went looking and found this instead: a comparison and analysis of 45 and Melania signatures:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/melania-trump-handwriting-personality-tenacious-loyal-materialistic-sheila-kurtz-a7754846.html

Interesting, no?! A match made in heaven.