Pete Souza is the White House Chief Photographer. He has the highest security clearance in the country. Number One. He goes wherever the President goes -- aboard Air Force One, riding with POTUS inside or very near the Presidential limousine in each motorcade, walking with the President behind the scenes and occasionally even into the private Obama family residence inside the White House. The entire photo collection of the daily life of the President is kept and becomes part of the public archives. They will eventually end-up in the Obama Presidential Library when it is established.
I declared myself as a Barack Obama fan and supporter in this post from October 26, 2006: Barack Obama, our Best Hope since RFK. I am following the President's remarkable journey closely and it is proving to be a deeply impressive experience. Barack Obama is absolutely destined to be recognized as one of the greatest of America's presidents. Of that I have absolutely no doubt. I am so fortunate to be alive at this point in history. Through the work of the White House Photographer we can all become eyewitnesses to this absolutely fascinating moment in history.
Every day Pete Souza posts a picture of the day on the White House website. I simply download and post Pete's choice for the day, or, Pete's Pic du Jour. It is a daily visual chronicle of the life of President Barack Obama. The office of the White House Photographer allows me, a plain doughnut kind of guy in San Francisco, to follow the daily life of the President inside the White House or aboard Air Force One or wherever on the planet he may be.
Pete Souza is the luckiest guy on eatrth. He landed a job as President Obama's White House Photographer. He is an "invisible" member of the family and of the staff. Pete Souza goes wherever Barack Obama goes. Not since Matthew Brady, who had the good fortune to photograph President Abraham Lincoln on a number of occasions, has a photographer had such an opportunity to be on the tip of the cutting edge of critically important American history.
PBS obtained permission (very rare permission) to tail Pete Souza wherever he went. The documentary, called The President's Photographer: 50 years in the Oval Office, provides a very rare and unique inside view of what it's really like to be tailing the President of the United States. There are some great shots of previous White House Photographers going back to the Presidency of Lyndon Johnson who started the tradition of documenting (almost) every minute of the President's life in office. The first real "member of the family" Presidential Photographer was Yoichi "Okie" Okamoto who did .
In the documentary you almost feel you are walking right along with Pete Souza, rushing right by the Secret Service and right up to the Boss. It is an impressive experience. Watch it at pbs.org/the-presidents-photographer/
The White House also has some interesting videos available online from a series called "Inside the White House".
Enjoy
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