What is it like to be inside the White House at every level of access? My latest article at DPReview interviews Pete Souza, the Chief Official White House Photographer for the entire Obama administration about his new book The West Wing and Beyond: What I Saw Inside the Presidency. I’ve had the opportunity to interview Pete twice in the last few weeks: for this article and when he appeared as our guest on the Photocombobulate podcast.
In this piece, we talk about the book and his experience, and I also wanted to know more about what it’s like to be on ‘photographic alert’ all the time. He admits that sometimes photographing the same people in the same rooms—so many meetings—could be a slog, but because it’s the presidency, anything can happen at any time.
“I think the reason I wanted to do this job when I was asked was because you’re literally in the room where things are happening,” he said. “And history, as much as I hate to say it, is when a crisis is going on. That’s when I knew my alert level was at its highest. Was it for those moments that I took this job? Yeah.”
Read the whole thing here: Pete Souza: In the West Wing and Beyond.
[Photo credit: Pete Souza]
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