Excellent candid pics of Obama's presidency

[Leica All Day]

awesome photos, thanks for sharing.

 

[Wulfthari]

Very interesting choice of such a huge archive. Why no closeups ?

Digital shooter apparently aren't aware of the existence of tele lenses.

However Barak is a photogenic guy and I suspect some of his political career was based on this quality, not that's a bad thing.

 

[kuuan]

Some good photos, I like best him kissing his wife. However if these are the best of 8 million I believe that most of us would have taken at least as many interesting pics 😉

 

[dave lackey]

Ah ... the perils of being an Aussie Dave! 😛

I know... try living here with the vibrant blather of talking heads on TV and around the people we rub shoulders with each day. Perils, indeed.

Impressive numbers, but I would be happy to see none!!!😀

 

[dave lackey]

Hmmm... I wonder how many photos of the Royal Family are taken everyday, on average.

 

[JP Owens]

It does engender cynicism when you have to deal with politicians a lot. But the kind of access that an official photographer has has resulted in some great photos over the years.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Great stuff and I think it was Pete's favs which may or may not be the best but I really like them all.

And I love these words by Winograd when he was asked about how many images he made and he said "art is not a product of industrial efficiency".
We never ask a painter how many sketches he made to get to the final piece.

To think of the history Pete was a personal witness to. All I can say is WOW and thanks for posting this.

 

[cz23]

POTUS and the missus making out at a game. That's terrific. Love seeing these. I think they show Souza's feelings for the man. Thanks for sharing the link.

John

 

[Asim]

Those are great shots of President Obama. My favorite is the one where he's adding weight to the weigh scale.

I'm proud to say that I'm in currently in the same region of the city where he grew up in Indonesia.

 

[DNG]

The number is irrelevant. Some nice images. I read somewhere he favoured the X100 for this work. Looks like that camera's output.

Digital shooter apparently aren't aware of the existence of tele lenses.

However Barak is a photogenic guy and I suspect some of his political career was based on this quality, not that's a bad thing.

Very interesting Interview from 2011...
I am sure he has different cameras now... The X100 is near silent to the photographer, so it must be 100% silent to others in the room.


Peter Souza: Master of the White House

Cut/Past from interview:
DPP: How are you able to get the photos you need without being a distraction to the president?

Souza: I try to have as small 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 also very selective as to when I shoot. I’m not doing motor-drive bursts. Also, I try not to use a flash ever, unless I’m doing "grip and grins." One of the things I had to decide when I started this job was which cameras to use. I chose the Canon [EOS] 5D Mark II, mostly because I thought it was quieter than the Nikon cameras. To me, that was a big consideration...



... DPP: What equipment were you working with that day?

Souza: Two camera bodies and four lenses: a 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 135mm. That’s what I carry most of the time. I think these fixed lenses are sharper than the zooms, and if I need to, I can use a 1.4 aperture in a dark room. The 35mm is probably the lens I use the most. It’s one of the sharpest lenses I’ve ever used. Sometimes, for a big public event, I’ll bring a 70-200mm, which is actually a sharp lens, as well.

DPP: You also worked with President Reagan. What are the differences between 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 do 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 have with President Reagan. Reagan was close to 50 years older than me when I first worked at the White House, and now, I’m a few years older than President Obama. I’ve had many life experiences between the two presidents, including having been in war zones, so I’m a more seasoned photographer than I was more than three decades ago...



... DPP: In a given day, how much do you shoot?

Souza: Anywhere from 500 to 1,000 images. I use 8-gigabyte cards. If I’m at the White House, I drop cards off at my office every couple of hours. Once they’re downloaded, we reformat and use them again. There’s a photo archivist at the White House who’s been there 25 years.

 

[Steve M.]

Edit, edit, edit! Well, I'm a film shooter and despise digital (in a nice, friendly way). What did you expect me to say?

In all seriousness, that's just too many photos to take. I'm reminded of the days before digital when someone, don't know who, photographed JFK sitting at his desk and walking around in the White House during the Cuban missile crisis. It's worth googling that and looking at those photos, they really captured the worry, fear, and concern of the president, and the photographer didn't need to take a gazillion shots, they just took the right ones.

 

[johnnyrod]

Great pictures, my favourite is the first one, it's just so ridiculous. Wish our politicians were human!

 

[Keith]

Great pictures, my favourite is the first one, it's just so ridiculous. Wish our politicians were human!

I have to admit that first pic is also my favourite. I love the humour in it ... it's the sort of pic that they may have just rejected but I'm glad they didn't.

 

[jarski]

....Approx 1 million shots a year

my guess that he's never-delete-anything type of photog, not even the faulty ones. just dump everything to computer and select good ones from there.

 

[minnichphoto]

Such high volume is often a negative side effect of digital technology and rarely results in better work. IMO, volume is usually a poor strategy.

I clicked on the link expecting to see unguarded moments of true authenticity that only intimate access can provide all with the flavor of a "personal" edit. Instead, this small edit, seems a little "PR-ish" to me.

Hopefully, given Pete's true talent, access and volume*, we will see the images of a historic president that only the Chief Official White House photographer could have captured.

 

[johnnyrod]

Perhaps the number includes bursts where there is max one keeper out of a whole load. Bin the rest, maybe just estimate the total number ever taken from the number of memory cards per day and number of days. If it turned out to be 1.5 million you'd still be impressed.