An Old, Old Trick

Press photographers are routinely accommodated immediately below the podia from which politicians deliver their speeches- and have no option but to look up- as if in adoration- and produce pictures that make their subjects look dominant and commanding. It's an old, old trick; they- and we- are being manipulated- and it irks me that picture editors persist in going along with it.

There's a typical podium picture in this morning's Guardian- which, if one didn't know better, would lead one to think that the increasingly frail and flummoxed Joe Biden was made of granite.