Imagine discovering a photograph of yourself from twenty years ago.
You may notice the clothes first.
Then the hairstyle.
Then the people standing beside you.
Perhaps someone in the photograph has moved away.
Perhaps someone has died.
Perhaps the location no longer looks the same.
Perhaps you remember exactly what happened that day.
The photograph becomes more than an image.
It becomes a doorway into memory.
The same thing happens with photographs of famous people, except the audience brings historical knowledge to the experience.
When people look at a childhood photograph of Donald Trump today, they don’t see only a little boy.
They also know what happened later.
They know that he became a major real-estate businessman.
They know he became a television personality.
They know he entered presidential politics.
They know he became the 45th president and later returned to the White House as the 47th president.
That knowledge inevitably changes how the image is interpreted.
