PHOTOS | Obama's White House photographer Pete Souza on what a president looks like
He was a fly on the wall of history.
For eight years, Pete Souza was the chief White House photographer for Barack Obama — documenting the president's most important moments of tension and triumph.
Many of Souza's photos have become iconic — perhaps most famously the picture of President Obama and his national security staff gathered around a monitor in the Situation Room, watching the raid that killed Osama bin Laden play out in real time.
Souza has now published hundreds of his photographs in a new book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait.
Below are a selection of his images, along with excerpts of his illuminating conversation with The Current's guest host Catherine Cullen.
Tell me about the first pictures you ever took of Barack Obama.
It was January 4th, 2005 — his first day in the United States Senate. I was working for The Chicago Tribune, based in their Washington D.C. bureau, and Barack Obama had just been elected. We decided to follow him his first year in the Senate and the first day I met him was the day that he was sworn in. You know the thing that struck me more than anything was that I could take these intimate pictures of him — and it was as if I wasn't even in the room. He was so comfortable with my presence and the presence of my camera that it sort of surprised me. As a photojournalist, that's what you hope for in a subject — someone who you know just going about their business.
Obama calls you a friend, a confidant and a brother, but your job was to document him. How did you balance those roles?
I knew my place. I might put my hand on his shoulder on a really difficult day. You know Newtown or something like that and just say "hey, are you doing OK?" or something along those lines. But no, I would never interject my opinion on any policy.
What's your sense of where his head is right now given the state of things in the United States?
I've known him now going on 13 years, and since that first day I met him the core character of the man hasn't changed a bit. I do notice that he seems much more at ease and relaxed now than when he was as president. It's a tough job, obviously, and I think in many ways the weight of the world is finally off his shoulders. I'm sure he's hurting inside with what's going on now but he does not talk about it with me and he doesn't show it visibly.
That makes me want to talk about arguably the most famous photo you have taken of Barack Obama in the Situation Room, the night of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
I knew it was some sort of special operation. I had no idea exactly what it was.
It was tense. Here you have the most powerful people in our government [...] all gathered in this room at the same time and they're not there to have a discussion. They're there to watch as this mission unfolds and be helpless, if you will, to do anything about what is taking place. They had already made their decision.
And in the picture the president is not seated at what we would call "the head of the table." There's a brigadier general who is on a laptop communicating with Admiral McRaven who is in Afghanistan who is essentially running the raid. And so the president let him stay at the head of the table and he just pulled up a chair beside him.
Much has been made of Hillary Clinton having her hand up to her face in that particular moment. But I went through my pictures while they were in that room for 40 minutes — I took 102 pictures — and actually somewhere at home I wrote down the number of times different people had their hand up to their face, and at one time or another everybody did. It's just what you do when you're anxious and it just so happened I chose this particular frame of the 102 because everybody had what I thought was the look best expressed the mood and emotion that was taking place.
As a photographer can you be open to becoming emotionally involved when you're trying to put together a powerful picture?
I do think so. I hopefully think you are able to control your emotions though, as things are happening. I think I did a pretty good job of that, except for Newtown. There were other times where maybe I'd get emotional but I wasn't crying. After Newtown I was crying as I was photographing and that makes it difficult — when your eyes become so teary that you can't really focus the camera.
I want to ask you about the morning after Donald Trump's surprise victory at the White House shooting photos. What was that environment like?
Well there were a lot of disappointed people and there were a lot of young people who were, I think, overcome by emotion.
There was one gal that worked as the assistant to the president's chief speechwriter and she had become a friend of mine. She was in her 20s and I when I came in that morning I checked in with her just to see how she was doing and she just started crying on my shoulder. I'm an older guy, I had been through a lot and I knew our country would get through this.
I think the president when he came down from the private residence to the Oval Office that morning took the same approach. He was trying to be the adult. What are you going to do, the American people decided to elect this guy president.
This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal.