The Modern Preacher

Sometimes, the most telling political images are made not in the glare of press conferences, but from the margins—from the places where presence is tolerated but not invited.

This frame was taken from outside a closed-door meeting, the camera positioned behind a security mesh that divides the observer from the observed. Through the diamond pattern, a cluster of suited silhouettes gathers around a glowing screen. At the centre, partially obscured yet unmistakably in command, the party leader leans forward, his expression a mix of resolve and calculation.

The geometry of the mesh becomes part of the narrative: an imposed barrier that both conceals and frames. It reminds us that power is often exercised away from public view, and that the photographer’s role, at times, is to press the lens against the very limits of access.

It is an image of distance—physical, political, and symbolic—yet also of proximity, enough to catch the moment when authority speaks to loyalty, and strategy takes shape in the half-light.