Review » Obama : An Intimate Portrait, by Pete Souza

Full Title: Obama : An Intimate Portrait
Author: Pete Souza
Year: 2017
Genre: Photography, History, Government
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
ISBN 978-0-316-51258-9 (hardcover)
Author’s Wikipedia Page

Summary

A heart-lightening look into the eight years of the Barack Obama administration, Obama : An Intimate Portrait is photographer Pete Souza’s masterpiece, long awaited by photographers and Obama fans alike. Rarely (if ever) has a photographer been granted so much access, for so long, into every aspect of a president’s life and work, and rarely has any person been photographed as often as Barack Obama. This book puts all those rare events together into a powerful picture story.

With a foreword by Obama (the author’s photo is also by Obama) and more than 300 skillfully-made Souza photos (culled from more than 2 million), it’s difficult to put down. Every photo is dated and accompanied by pertinent information about setting and participants.

I was first alerted to the existence of Souza early in the Obama administration years, when someone in the “Canon DSLR User” group on Flickr posted a link to the White House’s new account on Flickr. Souza was using Canon DSLRs and Canon lenses to record the Obama administration, and I began following the account. The photos were amazing. Unfortunately, all those photos have been scrubbed from that Flickr account, some time after the 45th president took office. Fortunately, Souza kept his own copies; some of the same photos appear in this book.

What I Liked Least About It

There is nothing to dislike about this book, as far as content is concerned. My only complaints are: weight and cost. It’s heavy and expensive. Which is expected, because most photo books by really good photographers are expensive, and any good photographer would want her work printed on thick, high-quality pages.

What I Liked Most About It

What I like most about the book is in the title: intimate portrait. Before Souza agreed to become the official photographer for the Obama administration, he insisted on access to “everything”. Every meeting, every ball, every dance, every room in the White House, and so on. Obama granted that access. And, as the former president noted in the book’s foreword, “I probably spent more time with Pete Souza than with anybody other than my family.” The results of that are clear. Candid moments show deep emotions, awkward poses, important interactions between some of the world’s most powerful people.

As a photographer, I’m impressed — not so much by the quality (which is excellent) but by the sheer daunting nature of the job. Souza was with Obama almost every day for eight years. No sick days, no vacations, no personal time, always on call — day and night. The effort required to catalog and sift through two million photos is astounding. (I have taken a couple hundred thousand photos in my 15 or so years as a photographer, by way of comparison.) To then choose just over 300 photographs for this book is another task entirely.

As a fan of the Obama family, this book took me back to those days of calmly sifting through Souza’s photos on Flickr in the early 2010s, enjoying the intimate look into the First Family’s daily life. It reminded me that we once had a personable, brilliant, witty, and naturally charismatic person in that nearly-white House. It shows the tough moments — right after natural disasters or the Sandy Hook shooting, for example — and the lighthearted moments, the tense and the relaxed. I went through several tissues while flipping through.

Conclusion

I don’t own any “coffee table books’ (as these used to be called), mainly because our coffee table is a place for building Legos and having wars between the Avengers and Justice League (ask my son; he can explain it). But also because they generally become dusty, boring, and never-looked-at after a short time.

But I think if I owned this one (the copy I read was from a local library), it would get more than the occasional glance. It draws you in, from the smiling Barack on the front cover to the now-famous picture of five-year-old Jacob Philadelphia touching Obama’s hair as he said: “I want to know if my hair is just like yours.” Within the pages, it’s difficult to choose a favorite, but I think mine is the page 162 photo of Obama’s silhouette in front of a lit monument of Martin Luther King Jr. Or maybe it’s the page 175 photo of Obama sitting in the same bus seat that Rosa Parks wouldn’t give up. Or page 254, where he delivers a fiery address in front of the infamous bridge in Selma. Or page 320, where he holds George W. Bush’s smartphone, making a photo requested by the other former president at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History And Culture. No, I was right the first time; I can’t choose a favorite.

Note: A shorter version of this review is available on Goodreads, here.