July 17, 2018 • 38 mins
Having followed a steep path from his working-class immigrant family in Massachusetts to the pinnacle of American photography, Pete Souza ended up working for both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama -- the only Chief White House photographer to have documented two presidencies. "The odds of someone getting two calls to work at the White House are pretty slim," he tells Alec with true humility, saying both stints were "accidental." That's hard to believe: Souza's unique ability to capture the moment without sacrificing composition won him plaudits for his work on daily papers well before he joined Reagan in 1983. But even though he's an old-school news photographer, he has a decidedly new-school following, thanks to the millions around the world who followed @obamawhitehouse on Instagram, and who now follow Souza himself. As Souza found his post-White House footing as a social media star, his Instagram turned into the catharsis bruised Blue America didn't know it needed. When the travel ban was announced, Souza posted Obama with a smiling Muslim schoolgirl. And the day before this episode of Here's the Thing went live, when Trump made nice to Putin in Helsinki, Souza posted Obama sternly towering over his Russian counterpart. The Obama images, as he tells Alec, "appeal to people because of what we have now." It's an appeal he hopes to capitalize on in his new book of Trump-Obama juxtapositions, Shade.
Special for Alec and WNYC, Souza gathered his favorite Obama photos that didn't make it into his book Obama, an Intimate Portrait. You can find them below if you're reading this on the web; if not, go to www.heresthething.org.
President Barack Obama plays with his niece Savita during the family's vacation on Martha's Vineyard in August, 2012 (Pete Souza, the White House)
Sasha Obama leans over her father as Malia touches his head ca. 2009 (Pete Souza, the White House)
Daniel Day-Lewis at the White House: 'Lincoln' Star reads the Gettysburg Address with Obama in November 2012 (Pete Souza, the White House)
President Barack Obama boards Air Force One at Norman Manley International Airport prior to departure from Kingston, Jamaica en route to Panama City, Panama in April 2015 (Pete Souza, the White House)
Obama crawls around in the Oval Office with Communications Director Jen Psaki’s daughter, Vivi, in April 2016 (Pete Souza, the White House)
Obama looks on as comedian Will Ferrell reads "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" to first-term cabinet-members. (Pete Souza, the White House)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
The president's legacy is shaped in part by images. So
our great grandchildren's idea of President Obama will be shaped
by the eye of Pete Susa. For a certain set
of Americans, it's easy to conjure his most famous shots
(00:27):
Sasha hiding behind the couch in the Oval Office, the
President running down a bright East Wing hallway with Bow
as a puppy, the situation room during the killing of
Osama Bin Lawton. Pete Susa has had a resurgence of
fame thanks to his funny, sad, and undeniably pointed Instagram posts.
(00:55):
He juxtaposes shots of the ex president with the latest
Trump news. When the Muslim band was announced, Susa posted
a picture of Obama laughing with a young girl in
a head job. When Trump refused to shake Angela Merkel's hand,
Obama showed up on Susan's Instagram feed, embracing her. These
(01:15):
and other posts have earned Susa a huge fan base,
two million followers, and one of the best selling photography
books of all time. But despite his association with Obama,
his first White House photographer job was with a very
different President Ronald Reagan. We moved to DC, win I'm
(01:37):
moved to DC and Michael Evans was the chief photographer
then and you came on when he was with Reagan
and you were part of a staff of people. What
in your mind has changed in terms of people's relationship
to a camera now that cameras are ubiquitous it in
everybody's pocket. Well, I think what it does is I
think every person now thanks that no matter what they're doing,
(02:01):
it might appear on the internet somewhere. Maybe they're more
suspicious now of you know, how they act and the
gestures they make when you were working with that group
of when I was working with that group of people.
By the time I came in during Reagan Um, people
were not phased by me being in the room taking pictures.
(02:22):
People just went about their business. But it was much
more cumbersome the process, relatively speaking back then, you're loading
film into a camera. Was lighting an issue, the sensitivity
of the lenses. I don't know that it was more cumbersome. Yes,
you've got to carry extra roles of film in your pocket.
That may be the only combersame part about it is
you gotta lower every once in a while, you have
to light Reagan differently than and and and both instances.
(02:47):
I'm trying to do almost everything available light and never
never doing anything with lighting is the first thing you
said to yourself when you're in the Oval Office. That's
examining available light situation. Of course, of course they have
good available They have good available light in the Oval Office,
but not in like the Situation room or the Roosevelt Room,
you know some of sometimes some of those rooms are
(03:08):
not lit very well. And yeah, and from a photographer's standpoint,
it's like ship, I don't want to be I don't
wanna have to spend a lot of time in this
room because the lighting sucks. But the Oval Office. The
other thing is great about the Oval Office is the
lighting in there would change depending on the time of
the year. And like, for instance, when the leaves dropped
(03:30):
off the trees and and the sun was lower on
the horizon, you'd get this incredible light at different hours
of the day. Yeah, and and and it would it
would only be there during you know, like December, January, February,
and then the sun gets higher and you're not getting
any any direct light into the Oval Office. Then it
(03:51):
becomes more flatter. So I was always looking forward to
the winter months for the lighting reasons. In your childhood
and your earliest collections, what was the first time you
had your hands on a camera. I did not really
take pictures until I was a junior in college. Um,
but here's the thing that, you know, you sort of
(04:13):
go back to your childhood and you to think about
things that maybe you did have an interest and you
just didn't even realize it. In nineties sixty five, my
parents took me and my sister to Washington, d C.
And we did all the tourist stuff, and there was
this book called The Living White House that we got,
which was like all the rooms in the White House,
(04:34):
they are all these color photographs, was put together by
National Geographic and there are some candid pictures of LBJ
in there. I just thought it was the coolest book
I've ever seen. And I used to look at that
book all the time. I mean, it's still at my
mother's house. And so there was something in the back
of my mind that the whole White House thing really
(04:57):
appeal to me. When you were young, oh not at all,
not at all. You went to be you. I went
to be you you were studying journalism. I was, I
wanted to become a sportswriter. And then you went to
Kansas when the Kansas State University for graduate work because
they offered me a teaching assistantship and photography. But it
turns out the best thing about Kansas State for me
(05:21):
was they had a great daily newspaper, college newspaper, but
they behaved as if they were, you know, a real
newspaper doing real journalism. So I started working for the
college newspaper. So the first time you use a camera
to take pictures as your junior year of college, yeah,
it's a very quick hop from you picking up the
camera for the first time to you teaching photography. I
(05:45):
fooled a lot of that. I tell you about that. Well.
I mean people think, oh, you graduated from Boston University.
You know, that's a that's a big time school, and um,
you know, they thought that I knew what I was
doing and I was still learning, but I knew the
basics of photography, and so I was teaching a basic
(06:06):
photography class at Case State. When you pick up the
camera for the first time would be what about it?
Did you say to me? It was magic? Shooting a
roll of film, the whole business of putting rolling that
film up onto the real in the dark, and as
you're shaking the tray, the image starts to appear on
the paper, and I was like, this is what I
(06:29):
want to do. You're in control from start to finish.
You're the only one involved in making the picture, in
developing the picture, and then in printing the picture. And
what did you like to shoot back then, probably trying
to do something with musicians. I was not very good
at first about photographing people. I was very shy, and
(06:53):
it was being so being shy affected how it was
like sort of like to me. It was it was
hard to relate to pe bowl when explain to them
why I wanted to photograph them, and I was self
conscious about it. And that was the biggest hurdle across
knowing how to deal with people in a way that
they would be comfortable to allow you to be in
(07:14):
the room while you're taking photos. Did you identify right
away that was an important component that you needed to
make people feel comfortable to photograph them. I needed to
make myself feel comfortable to be there. And the kind
of photography that I was doing was not. Um. I mean,
my guess is when when you're a photographed, it's a
photographer that wants to do a portrait of you and
(07:36):
put you in a setting and there's lights involves sometimes
or they're they're directing you a little bit, and the
photography that I wanted to do is fly on the
wall stuff I wanted I love, which I've tried to
turn my portrait photography into that. I say, please, don't
make me stand here and find some pos like you're
painting me. I would every time I work with a
(07:56):
photographer say let's talk, tell me a story about you,
or I'll tell you a story about me, and then
I'll stop. I have the sense to stop talking. But
I'm still that pot still simmering of where we're adam
terms of what we're discussing. So I'm distracted from my
own self consciousness. I need to take my mind off
the fact that we're taking my picture because I hate
(08:19):
having my picture taking and so do I I mean
the you do yeah, oh yeah, I can't. I don't.
I don't like the way I look, you know. But um,
but for me, it was it was take what you're
saying a step further. Uh, I didn't. I didn't want
to do a portrait at all. I wanted to be
I mean, one of the first projects I did when
(08:39):
I was just starting out at BEU was there was
this dance class. Older people participating in this dance class,
and I just kept going back and every day I
would go there to photograph because I wanted to just
sort of just like get the essence of what was
happening there, not a it wasn't a big subject at
the time, but for me learning how to do photography,
(09:02):
this was a good situation to be in where people
eventually didn't care that I was there, that I was
taking pictures. I could get close to them, I could
get whatever anal I wanted. So it's sort of like
a learning experience of you know, just do and fly
on the wall pictures. To when you've done in Kansas,
where do you go? So I've done at Kansas State
and I end up working for two small newspapers in Kansas,
(09:26):
which was a great training ground. Well, I just stay
in Kansas because it was a job there for you.
You liked Kansas mostly because there was a job. One
of my friends used to joke with me because One
of the newspapers I worked for, the Chinook Tribune, had
a circulation of six thousand. The town was maybe fifteen thousand.
(09:47):
It was an afternoon newspaper, and one of my friends
used to joke, if a dog crosses the street in
the middle of the day, it might end up on
page one because there was not that much happening town
small town. But it was a really great raining to
be to every day have to go out and you'd
have to come up with a page one photo, a
(10:07):
sports photo, and a business photo. Every single day. I
was the I was it. I was it And that
is probably the most pressure I've ever had in my
life to do that every day. Um, but it was
just a great training round because you how when what
did it force you? To force you to take the
(10:27):
most mundane situation and try to make an interesting photo
that when it's in print, people are gonna look at
and want to read the caption and maybe learn something
new every day. I can't say that I succeeded every day,
but I tried, and it meant a lot to me
the one year of that then and then I went
to the Chicago Sun Times. Uh So I went from
(10:50):
a six thousand circulation daily newspaper to SIDS and um.
It was one of those uh you know, somebody recommend
me for the job and I ended up getting it.
And which which specific job? Sports? Uh so general assignment photographers.
I did a lot of sports news, features, whatever. And
(11:11):
it was basically taking exactly what I did at the
small newspaper in Kansas and trying to apply that to
the big stity like a kid in the candy store.
Oh my god. It was so much fun. Yeah, like
covering big time sports, big time news. You know, there
was the Mafia was really big then and Chicago and
that was that was a component. Pete to me a favor.
(11:34):
I want you to photograph me on my left side. Okay,
that's my good side, right. I don't want to ask
you again, Peter, don't take a picture of me on
my right side. All right? We had no problem with you.
I gotta I gotta say you got the Chicago accident
down pretty might sometimes for how long? So sometimes not
very long. So see, I think I went there in
December of eighty one and I left in June of
(11:57):
eighty three because I got this call from Michael Evan.
Now wouldn't did Evans explain to you? Did he offer
any insights into why he called you? He knew your work,
could you had you wont awards for your photography. He
happened to have a photo editor working for him, White
House photo editor, who I knew and had been following
(12:18):
my career. And they're looking for people they think are hot.
They're looking for they were looking for one person. I
sort of fit the bill, and you know, my portfolio
then was pretty good. I had one some award in Chicago,
like Chicago Fire for the Year or something like that,
So I had gotten some attention in the industry photojournalism.
It's a pretty small community. You serve no everybody, And
(12:42):
based on the photo editors recommendation, Michael brought me in
for an interview and you know, offered me the job.
Presidents from Johnson on chose their own photographer. Doesn't have
to meet Reagan in order to get pass must not.
It was Michael. Michael made the call. I think I
met Mike Deeve, who was then deputy chief of staff
(13:02):
and was sort of overseeing the advance office and the
press office and stuff like that. So I think I
did talk the diver beforehand. But it was up Michael
made the decision. Were there ever moments of kind of
wistfulness when you missed the range of what you got
to do before basketball and mafiosa and everything, You've got
to do pretty much what you wanted. Did you feel
(13:23):
a little bit after some amount of time it was
a limitation to it, or you never felt that way
when you were in the White House. I was conflicted.
I mean I was even conflicted when they offered me
the job, because I was thinking, well, do I really
want to do this. I was not a fan of Reagan's.
Things were going really well in Chicago, so it's a
tough decision to make. But help what helped me make
(13:44):
the decision was what what you You always hope is
that you're making pictures for history and if you're in
the White House, But there there were times when I
really wished I was, you know, back in Chicago. Yeah,
we're shooting Reagan different from Obama beyond their personal I mean,
the one guy's a movie star. Yeah. I mean every
(14:08):
once in a while with Reagan, um, he'd be in
the middle of the meeting and he'd he'd like see
you taking pictures and like wink at you or something
like that. And with President Obama, it was like he
would forget that I would be even be in the
room because so. But but it was a different circumstance
in that I didn't have any kind of relationship with
Reagan coming in. I didn't know him at all. I'd
(14:30):
never met him. Uh, And I didn't feel like I
was totally immersed in the Reagan White House the way
I was with President Obama. Why because um, I knew
President Obama for four years before he was elected to
the presidency, already had established a professional relationship with him.
(14:55):
Plus I came in as the you know, the chief photographer,
So this was gonna. I was all in with him
for forgetting about, you know, your feelings about the person. Politically,
I don't want to do the podcast with somebody who
I don't have some degree of either admiration for or
interest in. UM. I respected Ronald Reagan, and I think
(15:16):
he respected the office of the presidency. And I think
because of that, I was able to say to myself, this,
it's worthy for me to be here. Were there ever
any episodes they were difficult for you? I mean, um,
I always looked at it is I wasn't trying to
glorify him. I was trying to, you know, accurately, honestly
(15:37):
portray what was happening. Um. But you know, certainly during
the Iran Contra affair, there are a lot of pictures
that I made that were, um, where he was, you know,
definitely down in the dumps and uh, not looking good
and sort of agonizing of what he did, what he
didn't do. And the world. You know, your younger listeners
(16:02):
won't remember this at all, but back in nineteen eighties
or the world was this is it was on cable TV,
on CNN. I don't think there's Yeah, it was a
big scandal, and I was right, and I was on
(16:23):
the inside, and it was a weird place to be
because even though his days were occupied with other issues
that were coming up, you still have to deal with
the economy and and he's having meetings on things that
have nothing to do with her on Contra. That's still
hanging over. It's in the air every single day, like
(16:47):
like like describe when is the White House photographer welcome
and allowed and when is he not? I think it
differs in every administration. Let's go back to Reagan, because
I didn't have relationship estab wished with him. Uh, you know,
I would push for as much access as I could,
but it but it wasn't the same as with President
(17:08):
Obama at all. I mean I had total access with
President Obama in a way that I didn't with President Reagan.
So Jeff Salmy mentioned to one of my producers that
Obama was curious about Reagan and asked you questions about Reagan. Yeah,
he knew I had worked for President Reagan. I said
to him that I wasn't didn't have the same kind
(17:28):
of access with Reagan as I did with him. And
he said, well, what was he like? I said, well,
to just be diplomatic about it, he was sort of
a big picture president, and President Obama said, I want
to be a big picture president. Former White House photographer
Pete Susa. If you're hungry for more from inside the
(17:48):
Obama White House, check out my interview with former Secretary
of the Army Eric Fanning. My job is to oversee
the army. The army budget is over a hundred forty
billion dollars a year. Do you think we still afford
to be a global power in the coming years. I
think we can, but I think we need to think
more creatively about it, as President Obama has been trying
to do. There are such as to what we can
(18:08):
spend and recognizing as he does, that national security is
more than just the military. Uh it's it's a whole
combination of things across the entire federal budget. There has
to be some balance there. The rest of that conversation
that here's the thing dot or org. When we return,
Pete Susa tells more tales about Obama from inside the
(18:32):
White House and beyond, and whether he'd agree to take
on the challenge of the Trump White House political differences aside.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
(18:55):
Now more with photographer Pete Susa. You first met Obama ware?
I first met Obama his first day in the U. S. Senate.
Uh So. I was working for the Chicago Tribune then
based in Washington, and he's Ben, a Chicago politician, and
he covered him no because I was in d C.
(19:18):
But when he's elected to the Senate in Illinois and
he comes to Washington, then it's on, you know, my
watch too to photograph him, and so we Jeff Zeleny
was then a correspondent in the in the Tribune Washington
bureau with me. He and I hatched this plan to
follow Obama's first year in the Senate and UM do
(19:40):
four big pieces throughout the year and got pretty really
good access to him in the Senate. And just because
of that, where you're in there every day, Obama is
doing this, he's doing that, this is a senator, you
can sort of get to know the guy a little bit.
I met his family, UM, and that one year kind
(20:03):
of turned into two years because we started we went
to Africa with him, and two does at six again
as Senator UM. And just over time you sort of
get to know the guy. He gets to know you.
He sees that you work hard, he sees the way
you work trying not to interfere with what he's doing.
So I think he appreciates that you get it. He
(20:24):
says that I get it, which is funny because that's
very similar to a set photographer in the movies where
someone is obtrusive and where someone is kind of they're
kind of groping. You can see them and they're finding
the ideal shop. They want you over the person that's
in the foreground and the furniture and the painting on
the wall, whatever. And I see them moving around, I'd
(20:45):
say to them, will stage something for them for the rehearsal.
Then you have to go, because I only work for
one camera at a time. I will only perform for
the movie camera. And then there were those rare people,
like one out of ten they were ninja, and they
would get all these pictures and I need even though
they were there. Is that kind of how he felt
towards you. Yeah, and I and and he says that
in the introduction. I mean, I like the term ninja.
(21:06):
I think maybe that's I start using that, uh, because
that was my thing. I think I knew how to
move around and not be a nuisance. I could go
right behind him and show things from his perspective, and
it didn't face him a bit because he just like,
forget about me being there. A matter of fact, I
got into an argument with him one time. Uh. He
(21:27):
had this meeting uh scheduled with the Schwarzenegger when he
was governor in the Oval office, and it was it
was scheduled for after lunch. Okay, so at lunch time
when he ate, i'd I'd always go run down in
my office and eat at the same time, so I
wouldn't miss anything. So it's lunchtime, I go down my office,
I eat, I come back upstairs. Schwarzenegger's coming out of
(21:50):
the Oval office. They just finished the meeting, and I'm like,
what the funk just happened? So I started, like, you
actually say it that way to the no no, no, no,
no no, I said it to his personal sent Okay,
I said, what happened happened? This meeting was supposed to
Oh he changed it too before lunch. I go, why
the hell didn't you tell me? By this time, he's
(22:12):
like listening to my conversation and he's like, what's the
problem here, And I said, Sir, Katie forgot to tell
me that the meeting with Schwarzenegger was moved before lunch,
so I didn't get any pictures of it. And he's like, now,
you you were in there taking pictures. I go, sir, no,
I was not in there. He goes, yeah, yeah, you
were in there taking pictures the whole time. And I
(22:35):
was like, I was not in there taking pictures the
whole time. I was not in there for one second.
But he was convinced that I had been in there
because he was just so used to me being around.
I guess the president is never coming up to you
where his staff is af I coming up to and saying,
don't use that, use that, don't use that. That's all
up to you. In terms of at the White House.
At the White House, I would be the final like
(22:59):
editor per se. I had photo editor that worked with
me that would uh, you know, send me what they
determined to be the best picture. But I would always
sign off on every picture before it went out into
the public sphere because I was the guy who had
the relationship with President Obama and I just wanted to
be you know, just careful. Um. So it was an understanding,
(23:20):
even unspoken, that you were going to make them look bad,
you're gonna make them look good. The I don't say,
I never know what that means, because I think if
you look at some of this, a lot of the
pictures that we made public that I don't think they're
all about making him look good. I mean, I've got
pictures of him learning about the tragedy and Manghazi and
(23:42):
Sandy Hook where he doesn't look good, but I thought
they were authentic? Is it government property? So every single
picture that I took is now at the National Archives.
We were not allowed to the lead a picture, Thank
you Richard Nixon, because after Watergate nineties conference past the
(24:02):
Presidential Records Act that all this material had to be saved,
and including photographs was one of them. Not just the documents,
but every photograph had to be saved. So every single
photograph that I made is now at the National Archives.
Why do you think you never worked for a White
House for for a president in between? Because I didn't
want to, You didn't want to. You could have pretended no,
(24:24):
no, no no, I don't know. I mean it's it's the
odds of someone getting two calls to go WHEREK at
the White House as a photographer are pretty slim. They
were both accidental in a lot of ways. I was
an accidental with Obama. I just happened to be the
Chicago Tribune and DC when he became senator. That's that's
(24:48):
what launched me getting into the White House with him.
Some presidents Bush Senior, for example, less photogenic. Do you
think that determines what kind of a photographer? Then I
feel bad for him. Because you know, he's just he
doesn't look like a very stiff in front of the camera. Yeah,
he's got the glass, the big glasses. Is not happy
being photographed, to seem and son wasn't like that though, No,
(25:09):
his son. I know forty three a little bit. I
covered his presidency from afar Uh and he's he's actually
a good photographic subject, you know Bush, just because just
he's kind of a jokester and you know, like to
rip people and yeah, playful and he's a good looking guy.
(25:32):
And I'm wondering what it must have been like for
the White House photographer there with with Clinton. Do you
think that there's times when you just go away and
leave him alone to suffer with what he's going through.
I mean, I think this is you know I mentioned
before about Iran Contra, this is a Ron Contra times ten. Yes.
And I was already working for the Tribune and in
(25:53):
d C. And so I would go to these events
as a member of the press to cover Bill Clinton.
And he was doing something, you know, on the environment
or the economy. It was during the impeachment crisis, and
all the news my editors, all they wanted is a
certain look from Clinton. To go along with today's story.
(26:13):
The picture was going to run alongside an impeachment store.
They wanted a witherd right, and so to be the
guy on the inside. Oh, I can't imagine what that
must have been like, But so does the president or
there or the times when they just dismiss you, they say, well,
let's not take pictures today or this week. You know,
if he's really struggling and suffering something like that. Are
(26:33):
they allowed to take a pass like that or they
obligated to leave themselves open to that every day? It
is complete. There's no like ground rules. There's no there's
no ground rules. It's based on the photographer's relationship with
the president and either one of the administrations you served
where you asked to step aside for a period of
time while they endured something that was bothering them. And
(26:54):
Reagan it was harder to stay in the room with
President Obama. He never wanted everything. Yeah, so when Bush
Senior comes in, forty one comes in, you leave? Where
do you go? What are you doing in that period
of So for nine years after that, I was a
freelance photographer based in d C. Did some stuff for
(27:15):
National Geographic When life was a monthly. I did some
work for them. Would you enjoy doing what you had?
Your break from being in that bubble with those people?
It was fun. What was fun was trying to take
the fly you know, they fly on the wall approach
to sort of feature photography for National Geographic and UM
(27:36):
learning about color and light more. You know, working back
then and for National Geographic you have to shoot slide film,
which it was very unforgiving. You have to get the
exposure just right. You have to be outside when the
light was just right. You wouldn't be outside at this
time of the day at two o'clock or whatever time
it is now, you do you want to be outside
at like five thirty or seven am. So learning more
(28:00):
about light and color UM. But freelancing was hard for
me because I was not really good at marketing myself,
and I had it was for nine years. It was
kind of up and down. I had some roll highs
and some real loads loads where I wasn't getting work.
So being the White House photographer and and the for
the Reagan for Reagan for all those years, that's not
(28:21):
a guarantee of some kind of a put for you
job wise, not a guarantee, and the I think when
I left, uh the White House under Reagan, it wasn't
like I was that well known. I mean, one of
the things that happened with President Obama is I'm known
because of social media. When do you recall social media
becomes relevant. Well, what happened was there's been this tradition
(28:44):
since the Nixon days that the White House Photography Office
blows up pictures, hangs them on the wall the West Wing,
and then you rotate them out. And people were blown
away by the pictures that I was choosing to put
on the wall because it was the real behind the
scenes stuff. And the communications people came to me and
(29:04):
to go, we need to make these public. We need
we need the public to see. And I was the
hold out. It took me like four or five months
to really get into wanting to do this, and I
said to them, well, if this is the way it's
going to be, then I need to curate the collection.
I don't want the Press office looking over my shoulder,
(29:27):
looking at every picture on the screen and saying, let's
do this one. You gotta let the professionals. Because I
had a really good photo editor who had been at
time magazine. I said, you gotta let us decide which
photos we're gonna make public. So that's how it sort
of got started. It was the staff coming to me, uh,
(29:47):
urging me to make pictures public um on. At first
we used Flicker and then Instagram. You know, it didn't
even exist until the second year of his presidency, so
later on we started using Instagram. To what camera did
you use when you were shooting Reagan nikon f M two?
(30:09):
What camera did you use with Obama? So with Obama
used a Canon five D Mark two, And why don't
you switch from the one to the other. I looked
at all the cameras, and I thought Cannon was the quietest.
They had what they called a silent mode. It wasn't
totally silent, but it was pretty silent. And it became
essential for the work you do, totally essentially, and it
(30:30):
was so much quieter than Nikon. It was even quieter
than the like a digital cameras. Um And so that's
that's why I chose the Canon. When you are doing
what you're doing in between the two administrations, and did
you say to yourself, you know, why am I going
(30:51):
back here to do this again? For a second hit
of this was it what what did you tell yourself?
What was their reasoning to go back after you've done
it for so long with Reagan? Uh? Well, I think
it was because I realized that, you know, Obama could
be a transformational figure in our country. I liked him,
I liked his policies, and he was a great subject subject.
(31:17):
I think it's his look. You know, he's tall and thin,
but he just had this manner about him with gestures,
with the presence of the camera not affecting how he behaved.
Um the way you're gonna ask you about that in
the words in the way that it's do you think
(31:40):
that the camera truly captures the person for who they
are or do you think there are people who are
able to even fool a camera and make you think
there's something that they're not or obscure something about themselves
that they want obscure. That's a negative value. People can
definitely do that, But people can't do that when they're
being photographed every re single day, nine to six or
(32:02):
nine to eight or whatever. There's no way you could
fool a came that. Yeah. So, but you know, if
if like I was only coming in for an hour
a day or something. Sure, somebody could put on a
show for an hour, but not when this guy is
(32:23):
around you. Essentially seven, it wasn't really seven, it was
more like twelve seven. That's what strikes me about Obama
is that he was a guy with it was a
certain kind of integrity to him. That's what came through. Well,
the most interesting part of my job was that I
(32:43):
saw him and all these different compartments of his life.
I saw him as a dad, and I saw how
he behaved with his children. I saw him when he
was on the basketball court, and um, I played uh
cards with him. Most competitive guy I've ever met my life.
And the general public doesn't see that, but I saw
(33:04):
that part of him. They sort of have glimpses of
his family life. But you know, he loved his daughters.
He loves his daughters and you I could see that,
you know, all the time. To make in a sense
that he, like other men who have had that job,
it was painful for him not to be able to
spend as much time with his family as he'd like to. Well,
I mean, one rule that everybody at the White House
(33:25):
staff knew was at six thirty or seven o'clock. He
was in a dinner with his family full stop. Now
there are times where you come back down to the Oval,
but he was going to have dinner with his family
every night. It was actually easier as president than than
as senator because as a senator, his family stayed in Chicago,
(33:46):
and he'd come to d C like three or four
days a week. I mean three, yeah, for like Tuesday
through Friday morning or something. So there'd be at least
three days that he wouldn't see his family, whereas when
we were in town, he would see his family every night.
With the president we have. Now, what do you think
your life would be like? Now? Boy, I don't know.
(34:10):
I know one thing is. Under no circumstances would I
have stayed on to be White House photographer. I was
the White House photographer. Now it's someone that had been
in the Bush administration and had been lower Bush's photographer
for But I like, I just I don't think I
(34:32):
could bring myself to be there and do that. Is
it a man or a woman? It's a woman. And
do you know her? Yes? Your book which I have here,
Obama and intimate portrait is breathtaking. It's beautiful, it's a
beautiful book because the subject is a very attractive guide
in a lot of ways, and someone who I support politically,
which makes a huge difference. But but it also appeals
(34:54):
to people, I think because of what we are dealing with. Now. Yes, yeah,
he was Abraham Lincoln. What's a picture even that's a
damn good picture I took. Well, here's here. You know,
the goal is to always capture a photograph a moment
(35:15):
that has mood and emotion, that's composed just right, the
lighting is just right. And yet I'm going to tell
you there's a picture that only has one of those
components that is one of my favorites, and it's the
one on the back cover. Um it's a young African
American boy touching the head of the president as he's
(35:38):
as he's bent over, Because I think that tells you
a lot about how he relates to um or you know,
how a young kid relates to him. But also that
even as President United States, at the behest of a
five year old, he went ahead and bent over to
(35:59):
let this little kid feel his hair, which I think, uh,
how much tells you everything you need to know? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I understand. I understand. Um, well, thank you so much
for doing this, thanks for having me on and I
I love your book. I think it's absolutely gorgeous. And
you're right, it makes people wistful. It's tough because we
(36:21):
certainly wish that we were in a different place when
than we are now. But do you get to interact
with Obama anymore? Run into Yeah. The last time I
saw him was at the portrait gallery, then failing of
the two pictures, he and Michelle's portrait, and then I
saw him over Christmas at he had a holiday party
at his office. Uh. He was wearing a Santa hat. Uh.
(36:45):
People say, well, how's he doing? I go, well, the
thing that I noticed is it's as if the way
of the world has been lifted from his shoulders because
for eight years, you're the guy everything is coming to
your desk and and despite you know, you think of
him as being relaxed, and you know that that's a
big job to have. And I think that he is
(37:06):
now enjoying life. Pete Susa's book of photos and stories
from his years in the White House with President Obama
is called Obama an Intimate Portrait. It's beautiful. If you
already have that one. You can pre order Shade A
Tale of Two Presidents, his next book of photographs. It
(37:29):
takes susa's Instagram into hardcover framing, inspiring the photographs from
the Obama White House with tweets and quotes from Obama's successor.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
(38:02):
Two cook
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
The president's legacy is shaped in part by images. So
our great grandchildren's idea of President Obama will be shaped
by the eye of Pete Susa. For a certain set
of Americans, it's easy to conjure his most famous shots
(00:27):
Sasha hiding behind the couch in the Oval Office, the
President running down a bright East Wing hallway with Bow
as a puppy, the situation room during the killing of
Osama Bin Lawton. Pete Susa has had a resurgence of
fame thanks to his funny, sad, and undeniably pointed Instagram posts.
(00:55):
He juxtaposes shots of the ex president with the latest
Trump news. When the Muslim band was announced, Susa posted
a picture of Obama laughing with a young girl in
a head job. When Trump refused to shake Angela Merkel's hand,
Obama showed up on Susan's Instagram feed, embracing her. These
(01:15):
and other posts have earned Susa a huge fan base,
two million followers, and one of the best selling photography
books of all time. But despite his association with Obama,
his first White House photographer job was with a very
different President Ronald Reagan. We moved to DC, win I'm
(01:37):
moved to DC and Michael Evans was the chief photographer
then and you came on when he was with Reagan
and you were part of a staff of people. What
in your mind has changed in terms of people's relationship
to a camera now that cameras are ubiquitous it in
everybody's pocket. Well, I think what it does is I
think every person now thanks that no matter what they're doing,
(02:01):
it might appear on the internet somewhere. Maybe they're more
suspicious now of you know, how they act and the
gestures they make when you were working with that group
of when I was working with that group of people.
By the time I came in during Reagan Um, people
were not phased by me being in the room taking pictures.
(02:22):
People just went about their business. But it was much
more cumbersome the process, relatively speaking back then, you're loading
film into a camera. Was lighting an issue, the sensitivity
of the lenses. I don't know that it was more cumbersome. Yes,
you've got to carry extra roles of film in your pocket.
That may be the only combersame part about it is
you gotta lower every once in a while, you have
to light Reagan differently than and and and both instances.
(02:47):
I'm trying to do almost everything available light and never
never doing anything with lighting is the first thing you
said to yourself when you're in the Oval Office. That's
examining available light situation. Of course, of course they have
good available They have good available light in the Oval Office,
but not in like the Situation room or the Roosevelt Room,
you know some of sometimes some of those rooms are
(03:08):
not lit very well. And yeah, and from a photographer's standpoint,
it's like ship, I don't want to be I don't
wanna have to spend a lot of time in this
room because the lighting sucks. But the Oval Office. The
other thing is great about the Oval Office is the
lighting in there would change depending on the time of
the year. And like, for instance, when the leaves dropped
(03:30):
off the trees and and the sun was lower on
the horizon, you'd get this incredible light at different hours
of the day. Yeah, and and and it would it
would only be there during you know, like December, January, February,
and then the sun gets higher and you're not getting
any any direct light into the Oval Office. Then it
(03:51):
becomes more flatter. So I was always looking forward to
the winter months for the lighting reasons. In your childhood
and your earliest collections, what was the first time you
had your hands on a camera. I did not really
take pictures until I was a junior in college. Um,
but here's the thing that, you know, you sort of
(04:13):
go back to your childhood and you to think about
things that maybe you did have an interest and you
just didn't even realize it. In nineties sixty five, my
parents took me and my sister to Washington, d C.
And we did all the tourist stuff, and there was
this book called The Living White House that we got,
which was like all the rooms in the White House,
(04:34):
they are all these color photographs, was put together by
National Geographic and there are some candid pictures of LBJ
in there. I just thought it was the coolest book
I've ever seen. And I used to look at that
book all the time. I mean, it's still at my
mother's house. And so there was something in the back
of my mind that the whole White House thing really
(04:57):
appeal to me. When you were young, oh not at all,
not at all. You went to be you. I went
to be you you were studying journalism. I was, I
wanted to become a sportswriter. And then you went to
Kansas when the Kansas State University for graduate work because
they offered me a teaching assistantship and photography. But it
turns out the best thing about Kansas State for me
(05:21):
was they had a great daily newspaper, college newspaper, but
they behaved as if they were, you know, a real
newspaper doing real journalism. So I started working for the
college newspaper. So the first time you use a camera
to take pictures as your junior year of college, yeah,
it's a very quick hop from you picking up the
camera for the first time to you teaching photography. I
(05:45):
fooled a lot of that. I tell you about that. Well.
I mean people think, oh, you graduated from Boston University.
You know, that's a that's a big time school, and um,
you know, they thought that I knew what I was
doing and I was still learning, but I knew the
basics of photography, and so I was teaching a basic
(06:06):
photography class at Case State. When you pick up the
camera for the first time would be what about it?
Did you say to me? It was magic? Shooting a
roll of film, the whole business of putting rolling that
film up onto the real in the dark, and as
you're shaking the tray, the image starts to appear on
the paper, and I was like, this is what I
(06:29):
want to do. You're in control from start to finish.
You're the only one involved in making the picture, in
developing the picture, and then in printing the picture. And
what did you like to shoot back then, probably trying
to do something with musicians. I was not very good
at first about photographing people. I was very shy, and
(06:53):
it was being so being shy affected how it was
like sort of like to me. It was it was
hard to relate to pe bowl when explain to them
why I wanted to photograph them, and I was self
conscious about it. And that was the biggest hurdle across
knowing how to deal with people in a way that
they would be comfortable to allow you to be in
(07:14):
the room while you're taking photos. Did you identify right
away that was an important component that you needed to
make people feel comfortable to photograph them. I needed to
make myself feel comfortable to be there. And the kind
of photography that I was doing was not. Um. I mean,
my guess is when when you're a photographed, it's a
photographer that wants to do a portrait of you and
(07:36):
put you in a setting and there's lights involves sometimes
or they're they're directing you a little bit, and the
photography that I wanted to do is fly on the
wall stuff I wanted I love, which I've tried to
turn my portrait photography into that. I say, please, don't
make me stand here and find some pos like you're
painting me. I would every time I work with a
(07:56):
photographer say let's talk, tell me a story about you,
or I'll tell you a story about me, and then
I'll stop. I have the sense to stop talking. But
I'm still that pot still simmering of where we're adam
terms of what we're discussing. So I'm distracted from my
own self consciousness. I need to take my mind off
the fact that we're taking my picture because I hate
(08:19):
having my picture taking and so do I I mean
the you do yeah, oh yeah, I can't. I don't.
I don't like the way I look, you know. But um,
but for me, it was it was take what you're
saying a step further. Uh, I didn't. I didn't want
to do a portrait at all. I wanted to be
I mean, one of the first projects I did when
(08:39):
I was just starting out at BEU was there was
this dance class. Older people participating in this dance class,
and I just kept going back and every day I
would go there to photograph because I wanted to just
sort of just like get the essence of what was
happening there, not a it wasn't a big subject at
the time, but for me learning how to do photography,
(09:02):
this was a good situation to be in where people
eventually didn't care that I was there, that I was
taking pictures. I could get close to them, I could
get whatever anal I wanted. So it's sort of like
a learning experience of you know, just do and fly
on the wall pictures. To when you've done in Kansas,
where do you go? So I've done at Kansas State
and I end up working for two small newspapers in Kansas,
(09:26):
which was a great training ground. Well, I just stay
in Kansas because it was a job there for you.
You liked Kansas mostly because there was a job. One
of my friends used to joke with me because One
of the newspapers I worked for, the Chinook Tribune, had
a circulation of six thousand. The town was maybe fifteen thousand.
(09:47):
It was an afternoon newspaper, and one of my friends
used to joke, if a dog crosses the street in
the middle of the day, it might end up on
page one because there was not that much happening town
small town. But it was a really great raining to
be to every day have to go out and you'd
have to come up with a page one photo, a
(10:07):
sports photo, and a business photo. Every single day. I
was the I was it. I was it And that
is probably the most pressure I've ever had in my
life to do that every day. Um, but it was
just a great training round because you how when what
did it force you? To force you to take the
(10:27):
most mundane situation and try to make an interesting photo
that when it's in print, people are gonna look at
and want to read the caption and maybe learn something
new every day. I can't say that I succeeded every day,
but I tried, and it meant a lot to me
the one year of that then and then I went
to the Chicago Sun Times. Uh So I went from
(10:50):
a six thousand circulation daily newspaper to SIDS and um.
It was one of those uh you know, somebody recommend
me for the job and I ended up getting it.
And which which specific job? Sports? Uh so general assignment photographers.
I did a lot of sports news, features, whatever. And
(11:11):
it was basically taking exactly what I did at the
small newspaper in Kansas and trying to apply that to
the big stity like a kid in the candy store.
Oh my god. It was so much fun. Yeah, like
covering big time sports, big time news. You know, there
was the Mafia was really big then and Chicago and
that was that was a component. Pete to me a favor.
(11:34):
I want you to photograph me on my left side. Okay,
that's my good side, right. I don't want to ask
you again, Peter, don't take a picture of me on
my right side. All right? We had no problem with you.
I gotta I gotta say you got the Chicago accident
down pretty might sometimes for how long? So sometimes not
very long. So see, I think I went there in
December of eighty one and I left in June of
(11:57):
eighty three because I got this call from Michael Evan.
Now wouldn't did Evans explain to you? Did he offer
any insights into why he called you? He knew your work,
could you had you wont awards for your photography. He
happened to have a photo editor working for him, White
House photo editor, who I knew and had been following
(12:18):
my career. And they're looking for people they think are hot.
They're looking for they were looking for one person. I
sort of fit the bill, and you know, my portfolio
then was pretty good. I had one some award in Chicago,
like Chicago Fire for the Year or something like that,
So I had gotten some attention in the industry photojournalism.
It's a pretty small community. You serve no everybody, And
(12:42):
based on the photo editors recommendation, Michael brought me in
for an interview and you know, offered me the job.
Presidents from Johnson on chose their own photographer. Doesn't have
to meet Reagan in order to get pass must not.
It was Michael. Michael made the call. I think I
met Mike Deeve, who was then deputy chief of staff
(13:02):
and was sort of overseeing the advance office and the
press office and stuff like that. So I think I
did talk the diver beforehand. But it was up Michael
made the decision. Were there ever moments of kind of
wistfulness when you missed the range of what you got
to do before basketball and mafiosa and everything, You've got
to do pretty much what you wanted. Did you feel
(13:23):
a little bit after some amount of time it was
a limitation to it, or you never felt that way
when you were in the White House. I was conflicted.
I mean I was even conflicted when they offered me
the job, because I was thinking, well, do I really
want to do this. I was not a fan of Reagan's.
Things were going really well in Chicago, so it's a
tough decision to make. But help what helped me make
(13:44):
the decision was what what you You always hope is
that you're making pictures for history and if you're in
the White House, But there there were times when I
really wished I was, you know, back in Chicago. Yeah,
we're shooting Reagan different from Obama beyond their personal I mean,
the one guy's a movie star. Yeah. I mean every
(14:08):
once in a while with Reagan, um, he'd be in
the middle of the meeting and he'd he'd like see
you taking pictures and like wink at you or something
like that. And with President Obama, it was like he
would forget that I would be even be in the
room because so. But but it was a different circumstance
in that I didn't have any kind of relationship with
Reagan coming in. I didn't know him at all. I'd
(14:30):
never met him. Uh, And I didn't feel like I
was totally immersed in the Reagan White House the way
I was with President Obama. Why because um, I knew
President Obama for four years before he was elected to
the presidency, already had established a professional relationship with him.
(14:55):
Plus I came in as the you know, the chief photographer,
So this was gonna. I was all in with him
for forgetting about, you know, your feelings about the person. Politically,
I don't want to do the podcast with somebody who
I don't have some degree of either admiration for or
interest in. UM. I respected Ronald Reagan, and I think
(15:16):
he respected the office of the presidency. And I think
because of that, I was able to say to myself, this,
it's worthy for me to be here. Were there ever
any episodes they were difficult for you? I mean, um,
I always looked at it is I wasn't trying to
glorify him. I was trying to, you know, accurately, honestly
(15:37):
portray what was happening. Um. But you know, certainly during
the Iran Contra affair, there are a lot of pictures
that I made that were, um, where he was, you know,
definitely down in the dumps and uh, not looking good
and sort of agonizing of what he did, what he
didn't do. And the world. You know, your younger listeners
(16:02):
won't remember this at all, but back in nineteen eighties
or the world was this is it was on cable TV,
on CNN. I don't think there's Yeah, it was a
big scandal, and I was right, and I was on
(16:23):
the inside, and it was a weird place to be
because even though his days were occupied with other issues
that were coming up, you still have to deal with
the economy and and he's having meetings on things that
have nothing to do with her on Contra. That's still
hanging over. It's in the air every single day, like
(16:47):
like like describe when is the White House photographer welcome
and allowed and when is he not? I think it
differs in every administration. Let's go back to Reagan, because
I didn't have relationship estab wished with him. Uh, you know,
I would push for as much access as I could,
but it but it wasn't the same as with President
(17:08):
Obama at all. I mean I had total access with
President Obama in a way that I didn't with President Reagan.
So Jeff Salmy mentioned to one of my producers that
Obama was curious about Reagan and asked you questions about Reagan. Yeah,
he knew I had worked for President Reagan. I said
to him that I wasn't didn't have the same kind
(17:28):
of access with Reagan as I did with him. And
he said, well, what was he like? I said, well,
to just be diplomatic about it, he was sort of
a big picture president, and President Obama said, I want
to be a big picture president. Former White House photographer
Pete Susa. If you're hungry for more from inside the
(17:48):
Obama White House, check out my interview with former Secretary
of the Army Eric Fanning. My job is to oversee
the army. The army budget is over a hundred forty
billion dollars a year. Do you think we still afford
to be a global power in the coming years. I
think we can, but I think we need to think
more creatively about it, as President Obama has been trying
to do. There are such as to what we can
(18:08):
spend and recognizing as he does, that national security is
more than just the military. Uh it's it's a whole
combination of things across the entire federal budget. There has
to be some balance there. The rest of that conversation
that here's the thing dot or org. When we return,
Pete Susa tells more tales about Obama from inside the
(18:32):
White House and beyond, and whether he'd agree to take
on the challenge of the Trump White House political differences aside.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
(18:55):
Now more with photographer Pete Susa. You first met Obama ware?
I first met Obama his first day in the U. S. Senate.
Uh So. I was working for the Chicago Tribune then
based in Washington, and he's Ben, a Chicago politician, and
he covered him no because I was in d C.
(19:18):
But when he's elected to the Senate in Illinois and
he comes to Washington, then it's on, you know, my
watch too to photograph him, and so we Jeff Zeleny
was then a correspondent in the in the Tribune Washington
bureau with me. He and I hatched this plan to
follow Obama's first year in the Senate and UM do
(19:40):
four big pieces throughout the year and got pretty really
good access to him in the Senate. And just because
of that, where you're in there every day, Obama is
doing this, he's doing that, this is a senator, you
can sort of get to know the guy a little bit.
I met his family, UM, and that one year kind
(20:03):
of turned into two years because we started we went
to Africa with him, and two does at six again
as Senator UM. And just over time you sort of
get to know the guy. He gets to know you.
He sees that you work hard, he sees the way
you work trying not to interfere with what he's doing.
So I think he appreciates that you get it. He
(20:24):
says that I get it, which is funny because that's
very similar to a set photographer in the movies where
someone is obtrusive and where someone is kind of they're
kind of groping. You can see them and they're finding
the ideal shop. They want you over the person that's
in the foreground and the furniture and the painting on
the wall, whatever. And I see them moving around, I'd
(20:45):
say to them, will stage something for them for the rehearsal.
Then you have to go, because I only work for
one camera at a time. I will only perform for
the movie camera. And then there were those rare people,
like one out of ten they were ninja, and they
would get all these pictures and I need even though
they were there. Is that kind of how he felt
towards you. Yeah, and I and and he says that
in the introduction. I mean, I like the term ninja.
(21:06):
I think maybe that's I start using that, uh, because
that was my thing. I think I knew how to
move around and not be a nuisance. I could go
right behind him and show things from his perspective, and
it didn't face him a bit because he just like,
forget about me being there. A matter of fact, I
got into an argument with him one time. Uh. He
(21:27):
had this meeting uh scheduled with the Schwarzenegger when he
was governor in the Oval office, and it was it
was scheduled for after lunch. Okay, so at lunch time
when he ate, i'd I'd always go run down in
my office and eat at the same time, so I
wouldn't miss anything. So it's lunchtime, I go down my office,
I eat, I come back upstairs. Schwarzenegger's coming out of
(21:50):
the Oval office. They just finished the meeting, and I'm like,
what the funk just happened? So I started, like, you
actually say it that way to the no no, no, no,
no no, I said it to his personal sent Okay,
I said, what happened happened? This meeting was supposed to
Oh he changed it too before lunch. I go, why
the hell didn't you tell me? By this time, he's
(22:12):
like listening to my conversation and he's like, what's the
problem here, And I said, Sir, Katie forgot to tell
me that the meeting with Schwarzenegger was moved before lunch,
so I didn't get any pictures of it. And he's like, now,
you you were in there taking pictures. I go, sir, no,
I was not in there. He goes, yeah, yeah, you
were in there taking pictures the whole time. And I
(22:35):
was like, I was not in there taking pictures the
whole time. I was not in there for one second.
But he was convinced that I had been in there
because he was just so used to me being around.
I guess the president is never coming up to you
where his staff is af I coming up to and saying,
don't use that, use that, don't use that. That's all
up to you. In terms of at the White House.
At the White House, I would be the final like
(22:59):
editor per se. I had photo editor that worked with
me that would uh, you know, send me what they
determined to be the best picture. But I would always
sign off on every picture before it went out into
the public sphere because I was the guy who had
the relationship with President Obama and I just wanted to
be you know, just careful. Um. So it was an understanding,
(23:20):
even unspoken, that you were going to make them look bad,
you're gonna make them look good. The I don't say,
I never know what that means, because I think if
you look at some of this, a lot of the
pictures that we made public that I don't think they're
all about making him look good. I mean, I've got
pictures of him learning about the tragedy and Manghazi and
(23:42):
Sandy Hook where he doesn't look good, but I thought
they were authentic? Is it government property? So every single
picture that I took is now at the National Archives.
We were not allowed to the lead a picture, Thank
you Richard Nixon, because after Watergate nineties conference past the
(24:02):
Presidential Records Act that all this material had to be saved,
and including photographs was one of them. Not just the documents,
but every photograph had to be saved. So every single
photograph that I made is now at the National Archives.
Why do you think you never worked for a White
House for for a president in between? Because I didn't
want to, You didn't want to. You could have pretended no,
(24:24):
no, no no, I don't know. I mean it's it's the
odds of someone getting two calls to go WHEREK at
the White House as a photographer are pretty slim. They
were both accidental in a lot of ways. I was
an accidental with Obama. I just happened to be the
Chicago Tribune and DC when he became senator. That's that's
(24:48):
what launched me getting into the White House with him.
Some presidents Bush Senior, for example, less photogenic. Do you
think that determines what kind of a photographer? Then I
feel bad for him. Because you know, he's just he
doesn't look like a very stiff in front of the camera. Yeah,
he's got the glass, the big glasses. Is not happy
being photographed, to seem and son wasn't like that though, No,
(25:09):
his son. I know forty three a little bit. I
covered his presidency from afar Uh and he's he's actually
a good photographic subject, you know Bush, just because just
he's kind of a jokester and you know, like to
rip people and yeah, playful and he's a good looking guy.
(25:32):
And I'm wondering what it must have been like for
the White House photographer there with with Clinton. Do you
think that there's times when you just go away and
leave him alone to suffer with what he's going through.
I mean, I think this is you know I mentioned
before about Iran Contra, this is a Ron Contra times ten. Yes.
And I was already working for the Tribune and in
(25:53):
d C. And so I would go to these events
as a member of the press to cover Bill Clinton.
And he was doing something, you know, on the environment
or the economy. It was during the impeachment crisis, and
all the news my editors, all they wanted is a
certain look from Clinton. To go along with today's story.
(26:13):
The picture was going to run alongside an impeachment store.
They wanted a witherd right, and so to be the
guy on the inside. Oh, I can't imagine what that
must have been like, But so does the president or
there or the times when they just dismiss you, they say, well,
let's not take pictures today or this week. You know,
if he's really struggling and suffering something like that. Are
(26:33):
they allowed to take a pass like that or they
obligated to leave themselves open to that every day? It
is complete. There's no like ground rules. There's no there's
no ground rules. It's based on the photographer's relationship with
the president and either one of the administrations you served
where you asked to step aside for a period of
time while they endured something that was bothering them. And
(26:54):
Reagan it was harder to stay in the room with
President Obama. He never wanted everything. Yeah, so when Bush
Senior comes in, forty one comes in, you leave? Where
do you go? What are you doing in that period
of So for nine years after that, I was a
freelance photographer based in d C. Did some stuff for
(27:15):
National Geographic When life was a monthly. I did some
work for them. Would you enjoy doing what you had?
Your break from being in that bubble with those people?
It was fun. What was fun was trying to take
the fly you know, they fly on the wall approach
to sort of feature photography for National Geographic and UM
(27:36):
learning about color and light more. You know, working back
then and for National Geographic you have to shoot slide film,
which it was very unforgiving. You have to get the
exposure just right. You have to be outside when the
light was just right. You wouldn't be outside at this
time of the day at two o'clock or whatever time
it is now, you do you want to be outside
at like five thirty or seven am. So learning more
(28:00):
about light and color UM. But freelancing was hard for
me because I was not really good at marketing myself,
and I had it was for nine years. It was
kind of up and down. I had some roll highs
and some real loads loads where I wasn't getting work.
So being the White House photographer and and the for
the Reagan for Reagan for all those years, that's not
(28:21):
a guarantee of some kind of a put for you
job wise, not a guarantee, and the I think when
I left, uh the White House under Reagan, it wasn't
like I was that well known. I mean, one of
the things that happened with President Obama is I'm known
because of social media. When do you recall social media
becomes relevant. Well, what happened was there's been this tradition
(28:44):
since the Nixon days that the White House Photography Office
blows up pictures, hangs them on the wall the West Wing,
and then you rotate them out. And people were blown
away by the pictures that I was choosing to put
on the wall because it was the real behind the
scenes stuff. And the communications people came to me and
(29:04):
to go, we need to make these public. We need
we need the public to see. And I was the
hold out. It took me like four or five months
to really get into wanting to do this, and I
said to them, well, if this is the way it's
going to be, then I need to curate the collection.
I don't want the Press office looking over my shoulder,
(29:27):
looking at every picture on the screen and saying, let's
do this one. You gotta let the professionals. Because I
had a really good photo editor who had been at
time magazine. I said, you gotta let us decide which
photos we're gonna make public. So that's how it sort
of got started. It was the staff coming to me, uh,
(29:47):
urging me to make pictures public um on. At first
we used Flicker and then Instagram. You know, it didn't
even exist until the second year of his presidency, so
later on we started using Instagram. To what camera did
you use when you were shooting Reagan nikon f M two?
(30:09):
What camera did you use with Obama? So with Obama
used a Canon five D Mark two, And why don't
you switch from the one to the other. I looked
at all the cameras, and I thought Cannon was the quietest.
They had what they called a silent mode. It wasn't
totally silent, but it was pretty silent. And it became
essential for the work you do, totally essentially, and it
(30:30):
was so much quieter than Nikon. It was even quieter
than the like a digital cameras. Um And so that's
that's why I chose the Canon. When you are doing
what you're doing in between the two administrations, and did
you say to yourself, you know, why am I going
(30:51):
back here to do this again? For a second hit
of this was it what what did you tell yourself?
What was their reasoning to go back after you've done
it for so long with Reagan? Uh? Well, I think
it was because I realized that, you know, Obama could
be a transformational figure in our country. I liked him,
I liked his policies, and he was a great subject subject.
(31:17):
I think it's his look. You know, he's tall and thin,
but he just had this manner about him with gestures,
with the presence of the camera not affecting how he behaved.
Um the way you're gonna ask you about that in
the words in the way that it's do you think
(31:40):
that the camera truly captures the person for who they
are or do you think there are people who are
able to even fool a camera and make you think
there's something that they're not or obscure something about themselves
that they want obscure. That's a negative value. People can
definitely do that, But people can't do that when they're
being photographed every re single day, nine to six or
(32:02):
nine to eight or whatever. There's no way you could
fool a came that. Yeah. So, but you know, if
if like I was only coming in for an hour
a day or something. Sure, somebody could put on a
show for an hour, but not when this guy is
(32:23):
around you. Essentially seven, it wasn't really seven, it was
more like twelve seven. That's what strikes me about Obama
is that he was a guy with it was a
certain kind of integrity to him. That's what came through. Well,
the most interesting part of my job was that I
(32:43):
saw him and all these different compartments of his life.
I saw him as a dad, and I saw how
he behaved with his children. I saw him when he
was on the basketball court, and um, I played uh
cards with him. Most competitive guy I've ever met my life.
And the general public doesn't see that, but I saw
(33:04):
that part of him. They sort of have glimpses of
his family life. But you know, he loved his daughters.
He loves his daughters and you I could see that,
you know, all the time. To make in a sense
that he, like other men who have had that job,
it was painful for him not to be able to
spend as much time with his family as he'd like to. Well,
I mean, one rule that everybody at the White House
(33:25):
staff knew was at six thirty or seven o'clock. He
was in a dinner with his family full stop. Now
there are times where you come back down to the Oval,
but he was going to have dinner with his family
every night. It was actually easier as president than than
as senator because as a senator, his family stayed in Chicago,
(33:46):
and he'd come to d C like three or four
days a week. I mean three, yeah, for like Tuesday
through Friday morning or something. So there'd be at least
three days that he wouldn't see his family, whereas when
we were in town, he would see his family every night.
With the president we have. Now, what do you think
your life would be like? Now? Boy, I don't know.
(34:10):
I know one thing is. Under no circumstances would I
have stayed on to be White House photographer. I was
the White House photographer. Now it's someone that had been
in the Bush administration and had been lower Bush's photographer
for But I like, I just I don't think I
(34:32):
could bring myself to be there and do that. Is
it a man or a woman? It's a woman. And
do you know her? Yes? Your book which I have here,
Obama and intimate portrait is breathtaking. It's beautiful, it's a
beautiful book because the subject is a very attractive guide
in a lot of ways, and someone who I support politically,
which makes a huge difference. But but it also appeals
(34:54):
to people, I think because of what we are dealing with. Now. Yes, yeah,
he was Abraham Lincoln. What's a picture even that's a
damn good picture I took. Well, here's here. You know,
the goal is to always capture a photograph a moment
(35:15):
that has mood and emotion, that's composed just right, the
lighting is just right. And yet I'm going to tell
you there's a picture that only has one of those
components that is one of my favorites, and it's the
one on the back cover. Um it's a young African
American boy touching the head of the president as he's
(35:38):
as he's bent over, Because I think that tells you
a lot about how he relates to um or you know,
how a young kid relates to him. But also that
even as President United States, at the behest of a
five year old, he went ahead and bent over to
(35:59):
let this little kid feel his hair, which I think, uh,
how much tells you everything you need to know? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I understand. I understand. Um, well, thank you so much
for doing this, thanks for having me on and I
I love your book. I think it's absolutely gorgeous. And
you're right, it makes people wistful. It's tough because we
(36:21):
certainly wish that we were in a different place when
than we are now. But do you get to interact
with Obama anymore? Run into Yeah. The last time I
saw him was at the portrait gallery, then failing of
the two pictures, he and Michelle's portrait, and then I
saw him over Christmas at he had a holiday party
at his office. Uh. He was wearing a Santa hat. Uh.
(36:45):
People say, well, how's he doing? I go, well, the
thing that I noticed is it's as if the way
of the world has been lifted from his shoulders because
for eight years, you're the guy everything is coming to
your desk and and despite you know, you think of
him as being relaxed, and you know that that's a
big job to have. And I think that he is
(37:06):
now enjoying life. Pete Susa's book of photos and stories
from his years in the White House with President Obama
is called Obama an Intimate Portrait. It's beautiful. If you
already have that one. You can pre order Shade A
Tale of Two Presidents, his next book of photographs. It
(37:29):
takes susa's Instagram into hardcover framing, inspiring the photographs from
the Obama White House with tweets and quotes from Obama's successor.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
(38:02):
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