Video: Critiquing President Donald Trump's new 2025 portrait

A week or so ago, US President Donald Trump unveiled his new portrait, which was captured by his official photographer Daniel Torok.

The image shows the 47th President staring menacingly down the camera lens, and as you would expect, the internet was quick to react.

On Torok’s Instagram page, the photographer was asked who directed Trump’s “super villain stare,” alongside a number of other questions, and in an interview with well-known photography YouTuber Jared Polin aka Fro Knows Photo, he gave an interesting insight into his creative process for the images of both Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

Toruk told Polin that “an entire series of images and range of emotions” were captured in the 20 minute photo shoot, and the published one [of Trump] was everybody’s favorite.

Both images were taken with the Nikon Z9 and Nikon Z 85 1.2, with the images shot at f5.6 and f6.3, ISO 160. The lighting setup consisted of a Profoto D30 at the front, 2x B10Xs over the shoulder and under as 'eyeliners', and an A2 as a hairlight. 

Torok said that ultimately it was the president who made the final call on the image selected, but the inspiration for the image of Trump was taken from his now infamous 2023 mugshot.

That image has been called one of the most searched for images of all time.

You can see Fro's piece on the portraits, which also include an interesting critique of Toruk's editing choices, below.