The Presidents' Photographers

No modern president can escape the camera . . .not even when he's behind closed doors, as Rita Braver will now prove:

What really goes on inside the world's most powerful office?

Tourists can only glimpse the outside. News crews mostly capture staged events.

But only one person sees and photographs everything.

Pete Souza is the Chief White House Photographer - a former newspaper photographer handpicked by President Barack Obama to snap shots both political and private.

"Who decides when you can get into a room?" Braver asked.

"I just walk in!" Souza replied.

Gallery: White House Photographers

He takes some 20,000 pictures every month.

Souza says he's "the luckiest S.O.B. photographer in the world."

"Right now I'm focused on documenting this presidency for history. I'm not worried about tomorrow's newspaper or next week's magazine," Souza said. "I'm worried about creating a body of work that will last, you know, hopefully maybe 500 years."

It is Souza's second tour here. He was an assistant photographer in the Reagan White House, who jumped at the chance to document history once more.

Every one of his photos goes into the National Archives for later release.

The White House publishes 75 online each month, and a few make it onto the White House walls.

One funny shot shows the President playfully adding weight to one of his staffers on a scale: "You can't plan for something like this to happen, it just does," Souza laughed.

But, he said, you have to be ready.

One of President Obama's favorites was taken when he met the family of a White House worker:

"And his son very shyly says, 'I had just had my hair cut like yours. Can I see if your head feels like mine?' And the President bends over" to show him.

And as the president himself recalled, "I put down my head so that he could examine my hair, and he helpfully pointed out all the gray hairs! And then he decided to pat me on the head, just to get a feel for it, and Pete took a picture. And I think that one has stayed up through the whole year and a half - just because it reminds you not to take yourself too seriously."

President Obama spoke to National Geographic for a documentary to be aired later this month on PBS, and for a companion book, "The President's Photographer."

Mr. Obama and his photographer have an understanding: Souza is free to photograph as long as he doesn't disclose what he overhears.

"There is nothing that Pete would do that in any way I would be worried about, and I think he feels the same way, that I've got his back," Mr. Obama said. "So Pete really does feel like part of the family."

Photographers were outsiders for most of Presidential history. James Polk in 1846 was the first to be immortalized with his cabinet. There are photos of James Buchanan, Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams.

Abraham Lincoln struck a pose before a campaign speech.

A hundred years later, John Kennedy became the first President to appoint an official White House photographer. Private moments with Caroline and John-John added to JFK's image then - and still touch a chord.

President Lyndon Johnson had a face that revealed everything . . . and a style that held back nothing.

Jimmy Carter is the only modern day president not to have a White House photographer.

Richard Nixon had one. But when it came to his resignation speech, perhaps the most memorable event of Nixon's presidency, Ollie Atkins was banished.

"Ollie? Ollie, only the CBS crew now is going to be in this room during this, only the crew," Mr. Nixon said just prior to the broadcast. "There will be no picture. You've taken your picture. That's it."

The unforgettable picture taken the next day, of Nixon looking back at the White House he was leaving, was taken by David Hume Kennerley . . . soon to become successor President Gerald Ford's photographer.

Kennerly, one of only 4 living former Chief White House Photographers, had intimate access to both the President and his wife Betty.

"The day before the Fords left office, Mrs. Ford was wandering around the West Wing shaking hands, saying good-bye," Kennerly recalled. "We walked by the cabinet room which was empty, this male domain.

"Mrs. Ford, who had a twinkle in her eye, said I've always wanted to dance on the cabinet room table. She took her shoes off, jumped up, struck a pose. I took a picture. She jumped back off, kind of brushed her hands and said, 'I think that will do it.'"

David Valdez REALLY got to know the whole George H.W. Bush family.

"There they were with George and Barbara Bush, and they were all just having that private moment one morning and I was fortunate enough to be there," he said, as the Bush clan gathered around Poppy's bed.

Robert McNeely remembers the dignified Bill Clinton: "My favorite picture is him at the door of the Oval Office. It captures this energy, it comes off the page at you," he said.

. . . and the President who could bawl out aide George Stephanopoulos:

"This is Bill Clinton, this is part of who it is. But if he sees me taking it and he sees me take it, I'm not going to get that full blast right in the face.

"He's doing George. I got the Leica. I'm like, I didn't frame it. I've got it set, the exposure set. Whew! Man, I did it." McNeely said.

Eric Draper was with President George W. Bush on September 11, 2001.

"The President turned to see the very first images of Flight 77 hitting the 2nd tower. Another image when we learned that we were being escorted by fighter jets, and that is when it truly sunk in terms of that we were really at war."

And now it's Pete Souza's responsibility to provide not just a GOOD picture of what goes on behind all those closed doors, but a TRUE picture . . . for now and for the future.

Does he have a very favorite Obama picture that he's taken?

"You know, I don't," Souza said. "I mean, others do. I mean, when somebody asks me that question, I usually say my favorite picture will be the one I make tomorrow."

For more info:
"The President's Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office" (National Geographic Books)
White House PhotoStream on Flickr