Hope, Change and Struggle: An Artist's View of the 2008 Presidential Campaign

The Sixth Day: Sacrifice — Embrace
"This is election night, the moment of embrace, of the American people and the global community, while he was on the podium. But I went backstage after his speech and it wasn't a party, there were no drinks, he was thanking people but his mood was very serious. It felt that was the beginning of the real hard work as a leader. I want people to interpret this work for themselves. There are lots of things one can read into this image but I don't want to prescribe what they are. I am also interested as an artist in how far you can distill an image down and it's still recognizable."

• TIME's Person of the Year 2008
• Barack Obama on Flickr