A picture is worth a thousand words, especially in an election campaign. Here are our top picks

It was less than a week out from the federal election, at a Liberal Party pub gathering for party faithful in Kooyong, and candidate Amelia Hamer was looking out of place. Photographer James Brickwood, by then on his fifth week following Opposition Leader Peter Dutton around the country, took note.

The evening itself was much like other events held on the campaign trail: Dutton makes an appearance in a key seat to boost morale, greet volunteers and support the local candidate. But given the mishaps that have dogged the Liberals’ tilt at this Melbourne seat – and its gravity, having been held by a Liberal treasurer before falling to the teals – the dynamics on display at the Hawthorn East pub on Wednesday night were going to be watched more closely than usual.

“You’ve got the opposition leader, who’s been in parliament for 24 years, and this first-time candidate thrown into the spotlight, who is under a lot of scrutiny and would be feeling the pressure,” Brickwood says.

“At times, though, Dutton would roam the room meeting supporters, but Hamer was kind of left on her own, either unsure whether to follow or not encouraged to by Dutton.”

Brickwood captured a moment where Dutton appears on the move and Hamer unsure. It has become one of the most memorable images of this year’s campaign, turned into a meme online and shared in political circles as the Coalition’s campaign is scrutinised in its final days.

Had the image captured a one-off moment where Hamer looked a little lost, Brickwood would not have published; it would not have been a true reflection of reality. “But it happened on multiple occasions and so I felt it was fair to file it,” he says. “The expressions on their faces sum up the mood of the final week of the campaign and the direction it seems to be headed.”

Brickwood’s considerations in filing that photograph reflect the decisions photographers make each day on the campaign trail. He and Alex Ellinghausen photographed all 35 days of the 2025 campaign for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, following Dutton and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese respectively as they made their case to voters.

“I think my role as a photographer on campaigns isn’t just to document the leaders on the trail, but to also be across the nuances of the news and relationships between politicians, candidates, the electorate, and offer a comment of sorts,” Brickwood says. “An observation that can’t necessarily be captured in words enriches the story.”

That has become a tougher task as election campaigns become more controlled. These days, leaders’ media appearances are tightly managed. There are few spontaneous interactions or walks through public areas. Even when a leader ventures into a public space, political staffers – called advancers – scout the location well before their boss shows up. They find friendly faces in the crowd, vet them, and place them at the edge of a media pack for their chance to say hello. These are the punters that might make their way onto the nightly news bulletins. When the leader arrives, advancers walk several metres ahead with their hands raised, directing every footstep.

Safety and security concerns are one reason for this, as protesters gatecrash an increasing number of events. Avoiding unscripted moments and unwanted scrutiny is another.

“Watching how leaders are received by the public is a double-edged sword. Positive interactions are favourable to them, but if they get heckled or things go wrong, it’s not the image they want shown. In the age of social media, these moments can go viral,” Ellinghausen says.

“Compared to campaigns of the past, there has been less appetite for street walks or shopping centre visits. When they do happen, they are usually quick.”

With stage-managed photo stunts taking up most of a photographer’s day, Brickwood says he approaches the job from two angles. “The objective news photography, where I capture the events of the day as an observer. And a more subjective one, where I’m trying to make photos that capture the mood of the day and give the audience a sense of the campaign,” he says.

“You want to be making photos that say something beyond: ‘he was here’.”

But with five weeks of campaigning, repetition can be a drag. Dutton has visited 16 petrol stations and several factories. Albanese has frequented urgent care clinics and whipped out his Medicare card dozens of times. Both have hit up housing estates and donned high-vis. Surprises are kept to a minimum. “It can feel like groundhog day, just in a new town or state. Keeping alert and fresh to capture sporadic moments when they happen is a challenge,” says Brickwood.

That’s why Ellinghausen says photographers must always be ready to respond to unexpected moments. “You need to have eyes at the back of your head, be aware of your surroundings and listen to what is going on.”

There have been a few of those this year. “Albanese stumbling off the stage at a union conference and saying it wasn’t a fall, or the awkward moment between him and Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek at the Labor campaign launch,” Ellinghausen says. “The evening the death of Pope Francis was announced, it was a scramble across the Melbourne CBD on foot in the rain to photograph Albanese departing St Patrick’s Cathedral after paying his respects.”

Footage of these moments can dominate a news cycle: the awkward greeting between Albanese and Plibersek fuelled days of speculation about their relationship; the prime minister was still hashing out the circumstances of the stage stumble three weeks later.

It’s a moment that could have been easily missed. “[Albanese] was repositioning himself for a group photo and then there was this moment where he disappeared behind one of the people,” says Ellinghausen. “I could only see his hands on either side of this person, and then I realised what was going on. Time [seemed] to slow down, but when I went back to watch the video footage, it all happened pretty quickly.”

These unscripted images are the ones that cut through. And they are not always obvious. The viral image of Dutton’s media bus, caught on a bike lane in the Sydney CBD at the beginning of the campaign’s final week, is another standout frame. The opposition leader was not even present.

“In that instance, I didn’t get to decide that would be a key moment. It’s more of a symbol than anything. Because the general public has a sense that ‘this is how [the campaign] is going’, they’re drawn to it. If things were going swimmingly for Dutton, that wouldn’t have resonated,” Brickwood says.

It’s a similar case with the Kooyong photograph, which has been shared widely online as internet users add their own captions and the image takes on a life of its own. “The reason why it’s become that meme, or people go ‘oh that’s great’, is because it sums up a vibe in that electorate, and how the campaign has been run,” Brickwood says. “It’s symbolic. A meme is a story, isn’t it?”

But it’s not open slather in the name of viral success. Many photos that are taken never get filed to this masthead’s database, let alone published. “It’s easy to make someone look silly, or make it look like they’re doing something they’re not. There’s a responsibility on us, with what we shoot, but also what we publish. If it was a one-off, I wouldn’t file it,” Brickwood says. “I feel I have to be able to defend each photo.”