> Leavitt, 28, who is described as the Trump administration's "mouthpiece" by Vanity Fair, was photographed up-close for a portrait in which apparent lip filler injection sites were clearly visible. The image sparked near-immediate disbelief online, with one commenter writing, "jumpscare" and another remarking, "no trigger warning is insane" on Vanity Fair's Instagram post.
> “Very close-up portraiture has been a fixture in a lot of my work over the years,” he told The Independent after the Vanity Fair story — and its accompanying images — went viral on Tuesday, Dec. 16. “Particularly, political portraits that I’ve done over the years. I like the idea of penetrating the theater of politics.”
> Anderson also photographed Wiles, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, and deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs James Blair.
> While all of their portraits were taken in a style similar to Leavitt's, the photographer insisted he was not trying to portray anyone in an unflattering manner.
> “I know there’s a lot to be made with, ‘Oh, he intentionally is trying to make people look bad’ and that kind of thing — that’s not the case,” Anderson told The Independent. “If you look at my photograph work, I’ve done a lot of close-ups in the same style with people of all political stripes.”
> He did say he “found it interesting to be even closer” to Leavitt than the other White House officials featured in his Vanity Fair portfolio.
> “Above all else, \[I\] try to cut through the image that politics want to project and get at something that is more truthful,” Anderson added.
> “When we were finished, \[Miller\] came up to me and he said, ‘You know you have a lot of power in the discretion you use to be kind to someone in your photographs,' " Anderson told The Independent. “And I look at him and I said, ‘You know, you do too.' "
> The photographer added, “I don’t know how much he related to that.”
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