This year, Jörg Gläscher was already at the Republican nominating convention in Milwaukee. In the run-up to the upcoming convention, we had the opportunity to ask him a few questions:
This year, Jörg Gläscher was already at the Republican nominating convention in Milwaukee. In the run-up to the upcoming convention, we had the opportunity to ask him a few questions:
The cultural and protocol difference between the Republican party conference and German political events was very clear. The public part was a pure show event. Wrapped up in various biographies, around the four core themes: Immigration, abortion, national security and tax cuts, around 20 people appeared in the arena in Milwaukee each day whose speeches had the sole purpose of paying homage to Donald Trump.
If you are accompanying a major event on your own, you have to decide what you want to do and what you can do. There are different access authorizations for different areas. It certainly doesn’t make sense to squeeze into an area with 100 colleagues an hour in advance to take a picture of Harris and Walz with tinsel in front of the US flag. But that’s usually where you end up. It’s the mix that makes the difference.
I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be influenced by your own opinion; it’s hardly possible to do anything else. But these conventions are all about the maximum show effect, that’s what they’re all there for. As a photographer, I have to look for and find the visual nuances.
The difficult thing about this topic does not take place in the auditorium, but outside. How do you manage to depict the incredibly polarized society in the USA? This uncompromising refusal to listen, this non-consensual inside-the-box thinking, coupled with deep-rooted racism. And when, at the end of the Republican party conference, 5,000 people shouted “Victory, victory, victory …” at Donald Trump, it was enough to give you the creeps…
