As Platon guided President-elect Donald Trump to a simple wooden box on the set of the TIME Person of the Year photo shoot at Mar-a-Lago in November, he declared, “More world leaders have sat on that apple box than on any other seat!” Platon has traveled the world with that very box, and on it he has posed some of the most influential figures in modern history including Barack Obama, Muammar Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, Vladimir Putin, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Benjamin Netanyahu, Imran Khan, Paul Kagame, Jacob Zuma, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Hugo Chávez, and Boris Johnson.
Capturing the essence of power while provoking what he hopes is “respectful debate” about a subject’s place in history has long been Platon’s approach to portraits. This is evident in his images of subjects posing with an American flag, something he often brings to his shoots as well. The flag was wrapped around a pregnant Pamela Anderson in 1998, draped on the shoulders of Muhammad Ali in 2009, and hugged by Edward Snowden in 2014. For the shoot at Mar-a-Lago, Platon decided to use a flag that was already on-site, asking Trump to recall the moment at CPAC where he kissed the flag on stage.
Platon has photographed more than 20 TIME covers since 2005, and his ability to consistently execute a nuanced portrait was the reason TIME selected him to photograph the 2024 Person of the Year. Yet even with decades of experience—and a previous photo shoot with Trump—under his belt, he understood the weight of the moment: This would be the first major photo shoot since Trump won the election. Here, Platon describes the experience of photographing the 47th President of the United States in his own words:
I first met Donald Trump 22 years ago in Trump Tower. I built a small studio in his office. He had charm and charisma. Even back then, it was clear to me he knew his “best side.” He was a master communicator and storyteller, and I was convinced he saw the media as a powerful instrument. After the portrait session, he invited me to sit in on some of his business meetings that day while I took some less formal pictures. He then wrote about the entire shoot in one of his books.
While my team set up our studio, adjacent to the main lounge, at Mar-a-Lago, the President’s personal playlist was piped through hidden speakers. “My Way” by Frank Sinatra, “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong, “Nobody Does It Better” by Carly Simon, “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad ‘O’Connor, “Beat It” by Michael Jackson, and “The Winner Takes It All” by ABBA. After a three-hour delay, he finally appeared, surrounded by his team and Secret Service. Today, Trump’s power dominates the room. We briefly talked about our last meeting – so much had happened to him since then. I asked him about the playlist I had been listening to. “They are all my favorite songs–I chose every one of them, 2,000 in all.” I told him I felt each song was a message–he smiled. “I chose them for a reason,” he said.
We talked about that moment at CPAC when he hugged and kissed the flag on stage–something no other politician would do. “Would you let me photograph you with a flag to honor that moment?” I asked. As he stood with arms around a flag and pole, he gestured a kiss for a second and I caught it on film. He squeezed the fabric and said, “We are gonna fix it.”
