Gary Hershorn has seen many presidents and presidential hopefuls in front of his camera. As a photographer for Reuters for 29 years, he covered two Bushes, two Clintons, and Barack Obama before he became president. But none of them compare to shooting (or trying to shoot) Donald Trump. Hershorn recently had the opportunity to cover the Republican candidate on the campaign trail and put the bizarre experience in context. His answers have been edited for length.

On getting access

I’ve been doing some freelance work in New York for an agency in Germany and a new agency in London, and going back to when the primary season started, the Trump campaign was not very favourable to foreign media. So a lot of foreign press who have tried covering him have been denied.

It’s loosened up a little bit. It was so bad at the beginning that even established agencies like AFP (Agence France-Presse) — they would go, “Who’s Agence France-Presse? We don’t want European agencies covering us.”

On the ‘hard-core following’

It was an event with Chris Christie in Lawrenceville, N.J. I found the night I did him, it is definitely different. There’s more of a — I don’t know what the word is — a hard-core following to him. When you go to a Donald Trump rally, you have to be prepared for protesters outside, so you have to be prepared for potential violence, and you have to be prepared for Trump supporters heckling his protesters … On a campaign, who’s heard of such a thing?

And then you go inside, and you sense immediately, more so than any campaign event I’ve done, a hardened support. People who like Trump are really standing up and showing their support for him. They wear his hats, they wear shirts, they wear American flag clothing, paraphernalia. That’s all part of the coverage. Photographers have always clearly made a habit of photographing what they call Americana around the campaign. Everyone wants to photograph the people holding flags, holding campaign signs … It’s done more with Trump than anyone else. People are really interested in seeing who his supporters are.

On the ringside atmosphere

The only thing I can relate it to was — I’ve covered a lot of boxing in my years. And boxing was really special. When you cover Mike Tyson — which I did a lot — when the lights went out, and they made the introduction, and he walked out from his dressing room, he was like a gladiator coming into the ring. People were craning their necks … and there was a buzz. There was this emotion in the crowd that you don’t get at other events.

I kind of felt that with Trump. Their guy was coming out. They introduce him and he comes out of the wings of the stage, and it’s like “Wow,” it’s almost like this gladiator has come out. It was almost the same kind of feeling, like being at a prize fight. And I’ve never felt that ever before, at a campaign.

On nailing the perfect Trump photo (think hair)

I think if you’re looking at a portrait of Donald Trump, the hair has to be a major part of the picture. A few weeks ago, Reuters had a minute-and-a-half portrait session with him, by photographer Lucas Jackson. And you can see that Lucas lit it and focused on the hair to make sure the hair was prominent in the picture. He did a profile picture of him so you can see the way the side of his head is brushed back. You need that. That’s Donald Trump. You’ve got to have some sort of light or highlight to emphasize the hair.

On any given day, when you’re shooting a portrait of him, I guess you wonder what colour he’s really going to come out like. Natural skin or a little more tan or a little more on the crayon orange (side). To take a portrait of him, those are two very critical elements of an image. Not trying to make him look bad — this is Donald. This is what Donald Trump is.

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