MPB Meets: White House Photographer Pete Souza with Neale James

Neale James, presenter of the MPB-sponsored podcast Photography Daily, spoke to Pete Souza about his experience creating photographs in the White House. In the interview, they spoke about Pete’s photography, his relationship with President Obama and the camera gear he used during the Obama years.

One of the world’s most widely-known photojournalists, Pete Souza was the chief official White House photographer for President Barack Obama and President Ronald Reagan. During his time with President Obama, he created more than two million photographs—many of which became instant history to millions of people around the world.

Pete Souza is also an author, with books including Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents and Obama: An Intimate Portrait—both #1 New York Times bestsellers—and Professor Emeritus of Visual Communication at Ohio University. In 2020, he was the subject of the 2020 documentary The Way I See It.

NJ: When we talk of intimacy like this, and you spend so much intimate time with somebody but were there moments where perhaps you disagreed or it got in any way tense between the two of you?

PS: Well, not when it came to photography. I don't think that was ever an issue. We had this ongoing card game on long overseas trips where we play spades. And sometimes I got a little competitive. 

NJ: You took an extraordinary amount of pictures, Pete, two million! How on Earth did you even go about doing that thing that many photographers dread? Culling, choosing what to keep—or did you keep everything?

PS: The way it works in our country is after Watergate, and the whole debacle with the tapes that Nixon tried to destroy, Congress passed what's called the Presidential Records Act, and it imposed upon each White House to save all documents for the archive, including photographs. So, as a result, we were not allowed to delete any photographs at all. So all of my photographs are National Archives, and there's a whole process of when all of them will be made public, but eventually, they all will.

NJ: I'll admit to being curious about what the photographer in charge of documenting the President's history would choose to grace space in his kitbag. And you chose Canon—and I wonder why? 

PS: Well, I think we've got to go back to 2009. The mirrorless cameras were just not where they are today. And so I had to make a decision between Canon and Nikon. I mean, I had checked out the Leica M8 Black, which was the first digital camera that Leica came out with. But it was a terrible camera. So for me, the difference between Nikon and Canon. The body at the time was the Canon EOS 5D—I think it was then the Canon EOS 5D Mark II—was so much quieter than the Nikon. Like, is unbelievably quieter than the Nikon. And so that made the decision very easy. If I was doing the same job today, I almost assuredly would go with one of the mirrorless cameras. Whether it would be Nikon, Canon or Sony, I don't know. But clearly, the mirrorless cameras today are just made for this job. But I didn't have that luxury in 2009.

NJ: And in terms of what you were choosing, lens-wise, I would imagine you had to travel quite light at times because you were either on an aircraft or on a car, and it wasn't like you could lug a lot of equipment around?

PS: Yeah, I was of the opinion that the smaller the footprint, the better. And so, when I was at the White House, I would usually have two camera bodies. A wide angle on one, usually a 35mm f/1.4 L USM lens. And then some sort of a telephoto on the other camera, either usually a 50mm f/1.4 USM, 85mm f/1.2 L II USM or 135mm f/2 L USM. And then I would have a third lens just strapped to a lens pouch on my belt. And I kept it that simple. I think later when Canon came out, with their second version of their 24-70mm f/2.8 L II USM, I found that lens extremely sharp and I started using that in addition to the prime lenses.

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