Platon Antoniou, a staff photographer at the New Yorker, used the opening of the UN General Assembly a couple of months back to take a series of photographs of the world's leaders. The results are displayed here.

But better than any one of the pictures, to my mind, is the story he tells about Bibi Netanyahu:

“As I was doing this portrait,” Platon relates, [Netanyahu] leaned forward and said, ‘Platon, make me look good.’ And the bizarre thing is that once the shoot was over — we had a few chats here and there - every time he would pass me with his entourage over the next few days, he would always come, shake my hand again, have a chat, and whisper in my ear, ‘Platon, make me look good.’ So I was kind of brainwashed by Mr. Netanyahu, that when it came to the editing process, I found myself making him look good.”

Of course, this can be - and probably will be - read on so many different levels (although to me it sounds like Netanyahu was enjoying a running joke). Either way, I'm sure Platon didn't have to work too hard. Whatever else you can say about him, Bibi is a good-looking man. And the competition at the UN wasn't too heavy.

But if only he could whisper the same thing in Obama's ear, with the same result..... 

(Via)