'Unfettered access'
American photographer Pete Souza shows the hidden life of presidents
Former Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza visited Central Michigan University on Sept. 30 to showcase his time working for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. During his presentation, some viewers cried, laughed and awed as he discussed his journey to document the most accurate depiction of a presidency.
Souza began the presentation with the famous photo of Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn into office after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As a kid, Souza was captivated by the famous photo.
“This photograph really hit me right in the gut,” Souza said. “The picture struck me so much that I asked my mom if I could cut it out of the newspaper. … I thought about this photo a lot as the years have gone by. How clearly there was something about the power of a still photograph.”
He said that even years later, he didn’t imagine himself as a photographer until he attended a photo class at Boston University.
“It never even occurred to me that I could someday be a photographer,” Souza said. “It wasn’t until 11 years later ... that seed was planted.”
From senator to president
After his time as a presidential photographer, he joined The Chicago Tribune. He told the audience that he and a colleague started a series of stories on Obama, who was just appointed as a U.S. Senator.
This was the beginning of work with the soon-to-be 44th President.
“Myself and a reporter pitched the story to the Obama folks, ‘Hey, let us document his first year in Senate,’” Souza said. “The plan would be to do four big stories throughout the year. So I got access like nobody else got.”
He showed the crowd photos of Obama sitting in his office, either alone or with his children Malia and Sasha. It was a white, windowless room, in which Souza claimed was the “worst office in the Senate.”
Souza said the one thing he liked most about the former president was that he was a great listener and was charismatic.
“He is a decent human being,” Souza said. “I really believe that he has integrity. … He listens."
“I mean some of those meetings in the situation room would go on for two hours, and it was because he wanted to hear from everybody in that room. What they had to say. What were their opinions. I think that’s a good attribute to have as a president."
After being appointed as the chief official White House photographer, he began his journey to tell the American people what the president does, day by day, through photos.
Similar to his time with Reagan, he captured photos of Obama’s life both as the president and as a father and husband.
“I felt like I was in a unique position,” Souza said. “I had known Barack Obama professionally for four years and when he offered me the job, I asked him for unfettered access. I said, ‘I need to be there for everything.’ I really wanted to create the best photographic archive of a president that had ever been done.”
He showed photos of Obama playing with White House staff’s kids on Halloween, practicing his slow dance with First Lady Michelle Obama and playing in the snow with his kids.
Souza also presented photos of Obama during tragic or tense events, such as the raid on Osama bin Laden and the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting.
He discussed his perspective behind the camera and how he felt during these events. One Souza described was the time he broke down while taking photos of Sasha performing a dance rehearsal of ‘The Nutcracker’ just days after the school shooting.
“The sugar plum fairies… came from backstage and they all came and sat in the row in front of me,” Souza said. “I’m looking at these kids and it was like 20, 25. And I tapped this one little girl on the shoulder and I said, ‘How old are you guys?’ … and she goes, 'we’re 6.' I just turned around, I just started bawling because it’s sort of this whole row essentially is what just got wiped out, and how can that be?”
His time with the Reagan Administration
Souza began his role in the Regan Administration in 1983 after being called by White House Photo Editor Carol Greenwald, who asked if he would be interested in applying for the job. Only working at a few newspapers beforehand, he said the transition from being a photojournalist for a publication to one of the president’s photographers was unusual.
“It was a totally unexpected thing,” Souza said. “I went from being a member of the press, with no access to national candidates, to all of a sudden, I’m in the room doing behind-the-scenes coverage of President Reagan.”
During his time at the White House, he had to follow Reagan everywhere he went. He showed the audience photos of Reagan on his ranch in California, parties that the president and First Lady Nancy Reagan hosted and visits to foreign leaders.
“One of the things I was also paying attention to is not forgetting to try to show people what is was like to be inside that presidential bubble,” he said.
In 2004, Nancy asked Souza to photograph the 40th president's funeral. Souza showed a slideshow of the photos he had captured during the ceremony. He showed a photo of Nancy with her two children Ron and Patti over Reagan’s casket.
He said the picture was “one of the more intimate photos” he had ever made.
‘He still told a story’
During his presentation, Souza cracked a few jokes about the president, getting members of the audience laughing along with him. Some audience members teared up during the story of Obama’s response to the shooting.
CMU Photography Professor Jeffery Sauger, who helped bring Souza to campus, said that Souza had shown the power of photography.
“I think when you look at pictures that tell these stories and then you get the story from the person who made those pictures, it can’t help but elicit an emotional response one way or another,” Sauger said.
He said that sometimes the job of a photojournalist can be hard.
“Spending the past 30 plus years as a photographer, mostly photojournalism, but other things, I still get emotional when I see or read things about certain things," Sauger said. "I think that makes good journalists.”
Junior Emma Grile said the Souza’s photos were “captivating” and that it was cool to see the behind-the-scenes of these presidents.
“I was talking to my brother and I said it was very intimate ... seeing the presidents not in just in suits, in meeting or giving a speech,” Grile said. “It was just cute moments that we got see of the presidents.”
Sophomore Sophia Melidosian said the presentation was very insightful and enjoyed hearing how Souza was “a fly on the wall” for both presidents. She thought his style of photography was intriguing.
“I thought it was very enlightening ... how he went about his photography and the way he would talk about it,” Melidosian said. “He did do the nice sectioning and everything but he still told a story in the same way during his presentation, to the point where everyone in the audience had tears in their eyes probably. … Not many speakers can get emotions and reactions from the audience.”
