By Arnold Gordon
Neil Vigdor has built a career at the intersection of speed and precision, covering some of the most consequential political and breaking news events of the past decade while sustaining a parallel life behind the camera.
A reporter for The New York Times, Vigdor focuses on breaking news with an emphasis on politics. He was part of the Times political team covering the 2024 presidential election and the 2022 midterms, reporting from every battleground state during the last election cycle, as well as from Iowa and New Hampshire. His work included tracking voting legislation and monitoring threats against election officials, assignments that required constant travel and rapid response.
Before joining the political team, Vigdor covered a wide range of national breaking news stories. His reporting has included the police killing of George Floyd, the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, several mass shootings, pandemic-related developments and four national conventions and two presidential inaugurations. The scope of his assignments has also extended to crime, business and pop culture.
A graduate of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, Vigdor began his journalism career in Connecticut. He covered state and national politics for The Hartford Courant and for Hearst Connecticut Media publications, including Greenwich Time. He has described his early days at Greenwich Time as formative, recalling a feature story about residents born on Leap Day that reflected his interest in local reporting before he moved to the national stage.
Vigdor’s professional life is closely linked to photography. In addition to reporting, he maintains an extensive portfolio of celestial and street photography, with more than 90,000 images taken over several years. His work is available through his website, neilvigdor.photoshelter.com. He has exhibited his photography locally, including a show at the Perrot Memorial Library.
His photographic practice spans urban landscapes and night skies. He has described the patience required to capture a Fourth of July fireworks display in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood, where photographers stood in a single spot for hours to frame the Manhattan Bridge. Because tripods were not permitted, they used fence posts to steady their cameras for long exposures.
In Connecticut, Vigdor photographed a private firefly sanctuary in New Canaan maintained by Bill and Mary Ellen McDonald. To capture the density of fireflies against a night sky centered on Polaris, he used stacking software originally designed for star trails, layering 160 images into a single composite.
His work also brings him into proximity with prominent figures in journalism. During the 2024 campaign cycle, he often worked alongside Doug Mills, chief White House photographer for The New York Times and a multiple Pulitzer Prize winner. Vigdor has cited Mills’s technical precision in Butler, Pennsylvania, during the assassination attempt on Donald J. Trump, where Mills used a Sony Alpha 1 camera with a shutter speed of 1/8,000th of a second.
Vigdor’s reporting assignments have at times required immediate mobilization. On one occasion, he was dispatched to a protest at the Manhattan courthouse during Trump’s trial with 27 minutes’ notice to identify a campaign surrogate for President Biden. The guest was actor Robert De Niro, who addressed the crowd before being heckled by Trump supporters.
He has also reflected on the changing economics of journalism. Vigdor worked for 18 months at The Hartford Courant, which dates to 1764 and is recognized as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. He has noted the impact of its acquisition by Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund known for cost-cutting, as part of a broader decline in regional journalism. In contrast, he has observed that The New York Times has expanded its digital offerings, including games and a cooking app.
Even as his reporting places him at the center of national political events, Vigdor continues to pursue quieter subjects. He has photographed a snowy owl at Long Beach in Stratford and used a neutral density filter to create long daytime exposures of waves at Greenwich Point. He has also traveled to Bruges, Belgium, to photograph Gothic architecture and Christmas markets.
For Vigdor, journalism and photography operate in parallel. One documents events as they unfold; the other seeks a different vantage point. Both demand preparation, technical fluency and a tolerance for uncertainty.
