Winner of the Pulitzer price on the photograph of a whistling ball by Trump

The New York Times veteran photographer Doug Mills said it was a combination of “longevity” and “luck” which led him to capture the assassination attempt against President Donald Trump in a series of winning photos of Pulitzer.

“This is by far the most dangerous situation in which I have ever been,” said Mills, who photographed all presidents since 1983. He added that it was also the most historic photo he ever took.

The winning photo sequence includes the moment when a shot by Trump’s head. Mills also captured the consequences, while Trump pumped a fist and was escorted with the podium by secret services, blood on his face.

Mills remembers being six at eight feet distance when the gunshots have sounded, and its news instinctively.

“I have not removed my shutter from the shutter. I did not have an end,” he said, adding his experience as a sports photographer probably came into play. “I did not stop to seek to see where the shots came from, but I just kept my finger on the button.”

“My instinct for the shooting of sports has really passed because it is so fast and you are waiting for this peak moment,” he said.

In the wake of the shooting, there was a floating misinformation around what had happened. He remembers an appeal with the journalist of the New York Times Maggie Haberman, helping him to demystify the assertions that fragments of glass of a telepromptor had hit Trump’s ear.

Mills said he was “amazed” after sending his photos to the office when editor Jennifer Mosbrucker called to say that one of the photos had captured the ball in the middle.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

‘You will win prizes with this photo’

Mills said Trump – who has long been complementary to his work – “amazed” on several occasions, including days after the assassination attempt behind the scenes of the National Republican Convention.

“You are going to win prizes with this photo,” said Mills that he remembers that Trump told him.

Trump also complimented others’ work that day.

“Many people say that it is the most emblematic photo they have ever seen,” said Trump about a different image of the photographer of Associated Press Evan Vucci. “They are right, and I am not dead. Usually you have to die to have an emblematic image.”

Mulls said that even if the work done by his colleagues that day was “just as big”, he believes he received the pulitzer because no one else captured proof of the shooting as it was performing.

“This is what I think introduced it to a new level of journalism,” he said.

“Photographing Biden was much more difficult”

As a senior photographer for the Times that has covered presidents and campaigns from Ronald Reagan, Mills previously won two Pulitzers for his coverage of the Clinton / Gore campaign and the Monica Lewinsky affair.

He also captured the moment when former president George W. Bush was informed of the September 11 attacks in a classroom in the Florida primary school.

In addition to his pulitzers, Mills was honored for his work covering the former president Joe Biden, in particular with a prize from the Association of White House correspondents.

But Mills said that the difference between photographing Biden and Trump was like “night and day”. As a career politician, Biden was much less out of the photo sessions and less interested in his images, said Mills. It made him less dynamic and photogenic than Trump.

“Photograph Biden was much more difficult,” he said, “but that kept you on your guard.”