Particularly on the campaign trail, the clothes a candidate wears—as well as the symbols, slogans, and signs seen at rallies—create carefully orchestrated photo-ops designed to make you feel a certain way. Trump’s sea of red MAGA hats at rallies became such a successful shorthand for Trumpian policies that today, some who disagree with his policies actively avoid wearing ordinary red baseball caps. “When it comes to politics it’s all about the candidate trying to control the visual narrative,” Dahmen said.

Tanner Curtis, a politics photo editor at the New York Times, encourages photographers to think about these rallies like puzzles that need to be taken apart and reassembled. They will inevitably be put in strategic places for the campaign, he said. “It’s your job to go and push those limits a little bit,” he tells them. “You have to be clued in, look closer, and look beyond.” Curtis emphasizes the importance of highlighting the elements that make up the scene, such as the way the seating at a campaign rally might distort the size of the crowd.

The same goes for presidential coverage. Curtis notes that often the difference between the official White House images and independent coverage is a matter of scope. The White House Team’s goal is to highlight the president, his policies, and whomever he is meeting with. Frequently that is done with images that look to be taken in a void: President Trump speaking to an unseen audience, or shaking hands with another world leader with no one else in the frame.