White House Photographer Pete Souza on How Obama Balanced Being President With His Family Life
In 1846, James Polk became the first president to exist photographed, simply it wasn't until the Kennedy administration that the first official White House photographer was appointed. Pete Souza has 1 of the most unique jobs in the earth. He's Chief Official White House Photographer and Manager of the White House Photography Office for President Obama's administration.
This isn't Souza's outset term in the White House, still, having served as a staff photographer for President Reagan. Souza'due south book Images of Greatness: An Intimate Await at the Presidency of Ronald Reagan was published in June 2004 by Triumph Books. Ironically, that same calendar month, Souza was the official photographer for the June 2004 funeral of President Reagan. Souza's volume The Rise of Barack Obama (Triumph Books) illustrates the 44th U.Southward. president'southward road to the White House by documenting his first year in the Senate. Now Souza is recording President Obama'due south time in the Oval Office.
Souza has won numerous photojournalism awards in and out of the White Business firm, including the prestigious Pictures of the Year International annual contest, the National Press Photographers Clan'due south Best of Photojournalism and the White House News Photographers Association's yearly competition. Originally from S Dartmouth, Mass., Souza graduated cum laude with a bachelor of science degree in public communication from Boston University and a master's degree in journalism and mass communication from Kansas State University.
DPP: How does one become a White House lensman?
Pete Souza :In every instance, it's different. For me, I got to know Senator Obama when he offset became a Senator and I was based in Washington, D.C., working for the Chicago Tribune. I spent a lot of time with him because nosotros were doing a feature on his commencement year in the Senate. I got to know him; he got to know me. He liked the way I worked, and he liked my photos. So i affair led to some other. When he was elected president, he asked me to be his photographer.
DPP: Did you hire additional staff? You tin't work 24 hours a 24-hour interval.
Souza: Sometimes I feel similar I do! I did hire staff—three other photographers, a couple of editors and someone to handle the paperwork. It'due south pretty much a seven-day-a-week job, though I try to take Sundays off. If he goes golfing, I'll accept someone else cover it. I've taken one weekday off in the final two years.
DPP: How are you able to get the photos you demand without being a lark to the president?
Souza: I try to have every bit minor a footprint as I can. He's very used to me being around and has become oblivious to me when he's in the middle of meetings. I'm as well very selective every bit to when I shoot. I'thousand not doing motor-bulldoze bursts. Also, I attempt not to utilise a wink ever, unless I'm doing "grip and grins." Ane of the things I had to decide when I started this job was which cameras to use. I chose the Catechism [EOS] 5D Marker II, generally considering I thought information technology was quieter than the Nikon cameras. To me, that was a big consideration.
DPP: Are you shooting any hybrid video with information technology? The 5D Mark Ii is the become-to camera for that.
Souza: I'm non shooting any, mostly because I'thou in a lot of tiptop-hugger-mugger meetings and a lot of economic meetings that are very sensitive. I don't want anyone to retrieve that I'm shooting video with audio capabilities because that would completely alter what my admission would be. I accept top-secret clearance. I'1000 sworn to uphold what that clearance is.
DPP: That level of clearance was definitely needed in the Situation Room during the raid on Osama bin Laden'due south compound in Pakistan. What was information technology like in at that place?
Souza: The minutes felt similar hours during that particular operation. Information technology was very intense. I remember I was changing the ISO between 640 and 1600 because I wanted to get some more depth of field for some of the shots.
DPP: What equipment were you working with that 24-hour interval?
Souza: Two camera bodies and four lenses: a 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 135mm. That'south what I carry most of the time. I think these fixed lenses are sharper than the zooms, and if I demand to, I tin can apply a ane.4 aperture in a dark room. The 35mm is probably the lens I apply the most. Information technology'south 1 of the sharpest lenses I've ever used. Sometimes, for a large public effect, I'll bring a seventy-200mm, which is actually a abrupt lens, too.
DPP: You too worked with President Reagan. What are the differences betwixt covering Reagan and Obama?
Souza: I wasn't the chief photographer for President Reagan—I was staff—so I didn't have the same access then that I exercise now. The chief photographer Mike Evans hired the staff, and I was one of them. I had a prior relationship with President Obama that I didn't take with President Reagan. Reagan was shut to 50 years older than me when I starting time worked at the White House, and now, I'm a few years older than President Obama. I've had many life experiences between the ii presidents, including having been in state of war zones, so I'grand a more seasoned photographer than I was more than three decades agone.
DPP: When the president goes on vacation, practice you go, every bit well?
Souza: I do. I'1000 not photographing him there every minute of every day, but there are sure family activities and the working role of the vacation I photograph. I endeavor to balance documenting the presidency with giving him some privacy. Every bit my friend PF Bentley said to me, "People don't realize that when he's on, you're on, and when he'southward off, you're still on."
DPP: Going dorsum to the time when you were photographing Senator Obama, there's a shot of him running up the steps to the Capitol with the dome in the groundwork. It's a masterful shot
in terms of composition and symbolism.
Souza: Having been a presidential photographer before, I was thinking to myself at the time, if this guy ever becomes president, I want to create images of him as senator that people will go back to and say, "Wow, look at this!" For example, there's a shot of him walking along in Cherry-red Foursquare in Moscow, and nobody is paying attention to him. I was thinking about that while I was taking the photo.
DPP: It has become important not to delete photos also speedily—Dirck Halstead's shot of Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton hugging, for example. He had shot picture show at the fourth dimension while most other photographers covering the president were already sho
oting digital. They probably had similar shots, merely deleted them long before the news broke about the scandal.
Souza: I asked Dirck what he thought when he saw that slide. He said, "Ka-ching, ka-ching." Anything my staff and I shoot is part of the presidential record so nosotros don't delete anything. We shoot all RAW files. Eric Draper, by the second term of Bush 43, was the first to shoot 100% digital.
DPP: In a given solar day, how much do yous shoot?
Souza: Anywhere from 500 to ane,000 images. I employ 8-gigabyte cards. If I'm at the White House, I drib cards off at my office every couple of hours. Once they're downloaded, we reformat and use them over again. There's a photograph archivist at the White House who'due south been at that place 25 years.
DPP: Is it an extremely stressful job?
Souza: Showtime of all, I feel and then privileged to exist doing this chore. I endeavor to never lose sight of that. That said, the job is also a grind. Working pretty much every solar day, I don't take vacations. Is it stressful? There are no bullets flying over my caput. I'chiliad not putting my life on the line for a photo. And so compared to the James Nachtweys, those guys have stressful jobs. Look what happened to Chris Hondros and Tim Hetherington in Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya.
To meet more of Pete Souza's images, become to www.petesouza.com. You can see the White House photostream on Flickr at flickr.com/photos/whitehouse.
Originally Published Nov 17, 2011
Source: https://www.digitalphotopro.com/profiles/pete-souza-master-of-the-white-house/
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