It all happened in an instant.
Mark Wallheiser arrived hours early for a Donald Trump campaign rally on Aug. 21 in Mobile, Ala. The venue, Ladd-Peebles Stadium, had a line of people waiting that wrapped around the property.
“That was early in the campaign. It was the largest rally that any candidate had had until that point,” said Wallheiser, a 40-year veteran photographer andTallahassee Democrat photographer for 27 of them.
Snapping photos throughout the rally, it wasn’t until Trump was making his exit that Wallheiser was able to capture an image that sent the internet into a frenzy.
The image, taken for Getty Images, went viral at a dizzying pace. It pictures a Mobile school teacher smiling wildly while holding her infant up to Trump, who is touching the baby’s face.
‘It was just happenstance’
“When I took the picture, things were happening so fast, I didn’t know that picture apart from any other. But when I started editing, that was the first picture I sent out.
“It was just happenstance, that that lady happened to present her child up to him. But if it were not that it could’ve been something else,” Wallheiser said. “I shot a bunch of good images that night, that was just the one that took off.”
Several days after the photo was taken, a friend sent Wallheiser a link to a Washington Post story focusing on the photo. Twitter was abuzz. It began to reach internationally, with foreign media outlets calling Wallheiser for interviews.
“I loved all the memes that were done on it. It was a scream,” Wallheiser said. “Except for the ugly stuff, a lot of people were being ugly with it and using it as ammunition to be ugly.”
Teacher ‘had a rough time’ after photo taken
Wallheiser never did get the chance to speak with the teacher, who was the obvious focal point of the photo. He did, however, get to speak with the principal of her school. He had contacted Wallheiser hoping to purchase a print to give to her.
“He said she had had a rough time with it, people were giving her such a hard time. I feel certain now, though, that it’s all blown over.”
Through the years, Wallheiser has had photos “blow up,” but perhaps not on the same scale.
“I’ve had photos go ‘viral,’ if there was such a word, back in the old days, film days. But it had to go on the AP, or something like that, and that’s about as widely as it would be circulated.”
Then, some interesting requests started making their way into his inbox.
“I had a lady email me one day while I was sitting at home, saying she was with a private collector that was interested in the photo.” After a short written correspondence, Wallheiser got the representative on the phone. “It was at that time that she told me, ‘This is for Sir Elton John.’”
In company with Ansel Adams, Irving Penn
The request was for the photo to be featured in the Sir Elton John Photographic Collection, which is comprised of more than 7,000 prints spread over six galleries in his six homes all over the globe. Wallheiser is in good company among the other photographers in the collection, with photography greats like Ansel Adams, Irving Penn, Robert Mapplethorpe and others.
Additionally, Getty Images has the photo featured in its Getty Gallery in London.
With all the attention around one of his shots, Wallheiser still insists that a career is made on the community a photojournalist serves.
“I’ve been shooting professionally for 40 years now, so the depth of my coverage over 40 years is such that … it’s not necessarily better than other stuff I’ve shot,” said Wallheiser, who left the Democrat in 2008. “It was a timing issue, and one of those things that just happened.
“My 27 years here at the Democrat, I’m much more proud of than this picture here, because of how it benefited the citizens of Tallahassee. My work here benefited my neighbors. When my race is run, that will be much better than this one photograph.”
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