The Nerdy Photographer Podcast 134 - Framing History: Pete Souza on Photographing the Presidency and a Changing Media Landscape
Few photographers have had the privilege of documenting history as closely as Pete Souza. As the Chief Official White House Photographer for both the Reagan and Obama administrations, Souza captured some of the most defining moments in modern political history. In this episode, we sit down with him to discuss the stark differences between the White House administrations he covered, the evolution of photojournalism, and what it takes to tell an honest and compelling visual story.
From film to digital, from carefully curated moments to the instantaneous nature of modern media, Souza has witnessed firsthand how photography's role in shaping public perception has changed over the decades. Tune in as he shares behind-the-scenes insights, his approach to storytelling, and the lessons he's learned about patience, access, and the power of a single image.
Whether you're a photographer, a history buff, or just love a good story, this episode is one you won't want to miss!
Watch the video of this interview with the photos we discuss, exclusively available for the first 7 days to members of our YouTube channel - https://youtu.be/2kWSl1K9gqQ
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Pete Souza is a best-selling author, speaker and freelance photographer. He is also Professor Emeritus of Visual Communication at Ohio University. For all eight years of the Obama administration, Souza was the Chief Official White House Photographer and the Director of the White House photo office. His book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, was published by Little, Brown & Company in 2017, and debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. His 2018 book, Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents, also debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Shade is a portrait in Presidential contrasts, telling the tale of the Obama and Trump administrations through a series of visual juxtapositions.It is one of the best-selling photography books of all time.
In 2021, Souza was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame. In 2022, Souza was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Photographers of America.
Souza started his career working for two small newspapers in Kansas. From there, he worked as a staff photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times; an Official Photographer for President Reagan; a freelancer for National Geographic and other publications; the national photographer for the Chicago Tribune based in their Washington, D.C. bureau; and an assistant professor of photojournalism at Ohio University; before becoming Chief Official White House Photographer for President Obama in 2009.
In addition to the national political scene, Souza has covered stories around the world. After 9/11, he was among the first journalists to cover the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan, after crossing the Hindu Kush mountains by horseback in three feet of snow. Also while at the Tribune, Souza was part of the staff awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for explanatory reporting on the airline industry
You can view Pete's work on his website - PeteSouza.com - or you can follow him on Instagram @petesouza
About The PodcastThe Nerdy Photographer Podcast is written and produced by Casey Fatchett. Casey is a professional photographer in the New York City / Northern New Jersey with more than 20 years of experience. He just wants to help people and make them laugh. You can view Casey's wedding work at https://fatchett.com or his non-wedding work at https://caseyfatchettphotography.com
If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any other episodes, OR if you would like to ask a photography related question or have ideas for a topic for a future episode, please reach out to us at https://nerdyphotographer.com/contact
Episode Transcript:
Casey Fatchett 0:04 Hello, anybody in here? Oh, hey, welcome to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your host. Casey Fatchett, if you've never listened to the show before, welcome if you have listened to this show before. Congratulations. You found your way back. In addition to providing entertaining and informative photography related info, I also go on adventures with the crew of the starship Fibonacci. At the moment, I'm trying to submit some images at this sector's intergalactic news wire center, but there doesn't seem to be anyone here. Very strange on this episode of the podcast, I interview the legendary Pete Souza. Pete souza's photojournalism career spans six decades, from small town newspapers in Kansas to being one of the first people in Afghanistan after 911 Pete is perhaps most well known as being the official White House photographer for presidents Reagan and Obama. He has a ton of stories and insights to share that whole conversation after the break. You do not want to miss it now to see if I can find someone to submit these photos to.
Casey Fatchett 1:19 Hey there, nerds. The nerdy photographer has a brand new website, and with it, we've created a resources page where you can find all sorts of things to help you in your photographic journey, from contract templates to website hosting to web design services to printing. It's all in there. Be sure to go out and check out nerdy photographer.com/resources photographer.com/resources that's nerdy. Photographer.com/resources,
Casey Fatchett 1:53 hello and welcome to the nerdy photographer podcast. I'm your host, Casey Fatchett, and I am here today with main, legendary photographer Pete Souza, who White House photographer for both Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, as well as part of a Pulitzer Prize winning team. Pete, thank you very much for being on the show with us.
Pete Souza 2:15 Hey, thanks for having me on Casey. I appreciate it. No problem.
Casey Fatchett 2:18 And before we get started, we're going to roll the dice breaker, and it is a 12 What is something small or unexpected that brings you joy?
Pete Souza 2:39 Oh, that's an easy one. I have two small granddaughters, and both of them, especially the two year old, who is the smallest, brings me joy. That's great.
Casey Fatchett 3:02 I've seen you again other interviews and talking about how you feel that your job now is documenting them growing up.
Pete Souza 3:13 Well, that's part of it. It's also being involved in their in their lives. There, there are times when that's more important than documenting their lives, to be honest with you. So I'm always trying to balance that, you know, documenting their lives but also being present and for them and interacting with them.
Casey Fatchett 3:39 I think that's a that's something that I've personally dealt with. My wife and I were talking about it this morning and last night, actually about the balance of because I have a problem with when we're out, like we're traveling or doing something, and I find myself in photography mode and trying to pull back and just be in the moment. And I look this whole last year, I've been working on projects that keep me in the moment
Pete Souza 4:14 well, and I think that it's it's probably easier now when they're younger. I mean, once they become older, and you know, hopefully I'll still be around, I think, you know, they probably will become more self conscious about the camera and my taking pictures. But for now, it's, it's that, it's just this is who they've grown up with me always with a camera, and so they're very used to me doing it
Casey Fatchett 4:54 It feels very natural, and it kind of brings me to my. I like first question, and I've heard you speak about like, be you're seeing your role as a White House photographer, as being a documentary documentarian. How do you, I mean, maintain impartiality and stay present in those moments.
Pete Souza 5:31 Oh, boy, lot to unpack there. In terms of articulating that, first, I would say that my background is as a photojournalist. I have spent a big part of my career photographing on staff at newspapers and then also freelancing for magazines, in both cases as a photojournalist. Obviously, when you're the official White House photographer, you're working for the government, but it's not like you walk in the room and suddenly are going about making pictures any differently. I mean, I have an inherent way that I make photographs, and that didn't change when I, you know, became White House photographer. I'm still looking for a moment composition, you know, candid photography, that sort of thing. So in many ways, the only different approach is that I was thinking of more photographs that were more timeless. And you know, when you work for a newspaper, what's your goal? Your goal is to have the front page of the newspaper the next day. That's what you're striving for. You want your picture to be the chosen to be the front page photo. You don't have those thoughts when you're a White House photographer. I mean, yes, the Obama administration did have an Instagram account when Instagram came out, and they would use some, sometimes use my photos right away. But I was thinking long term. I was thinking about the historical aspect of what I was doing. And I guess the maybe the one difference in my approach would be if I were to go into a meeting in the Oval Office, I'd still be thinking the same way I did as a photojournalist, but I'd always try to make a few frames where I can see everybody that's in that meeting, You know, for documentation purposes, to have a visual record of, okay, who was in this meeting. And I always thought it was important to have at least, you know, a couple frames, even if they're kind of throwaway frames, but that for the historical record, you know, we can see everybody's in there
Casey Fatchett 8:16 who was here, who was the part of there, who was part of this, yeah, I think that. I mean, I'm familiar with your work, and I think if somebody mentions your name, the first photo that comes to mind for me is the Situation Room photo with with the bin Laden raid. And the thing that that I'm curious about and is, when something like that is happening, like you're talking about, are you in the zone then, as a photographer, or is there some part of you that is that in the back of your head is like, this is a moment historically?
Pete Souza 9:00 Oh, I think both. I mean, obviously the significance of that day was such that, you know, I know it was a big day for our country. Didn't know how it's going to turn out, you know, because it could have turned out poorly. And that, you know that my job and that and that on that day was just making sure that I was, like, hyper vigilant in terms of everything that was going on that day. I mean that the picture that you talk about, we were in that the rate itself lasted 40 minutes. But I was photographing, I think, 12 hours that day. There were meetings before after, you know, and so, but I was hyper vigilant as to everything that was taking place. I. Got so much to say,
Casey Fatchett 10:02 whatever you want to say.
Pete Souza 10:05 I mean I just said that. I tried to make frames where you could see everybody in the room, the picture that has become the iconic one from when they were actually watching the raid. That picture, it does not show everybody that was in that room, because, compositionally, that I had a 24 millimeter lens, which is very wide angle, and then I had a 35 millimeter which is what that picture was taken with. 35 millimeter lens, the 25 was just too wide and it compositionally, it didn't really work. I did make several frames with the 24 because I wanted to see, I wanted, at least for historical record, as I talked about, where you see, you know, everybody that's in the room. But I kind of narrowed it down a little bit for the photograph, I mean, because I thought it was the most effective composition.
Casey Fatchett 11:06 But no, go ahead, I was gonna say like, so in it makes sense that there's a that there's kind of like two minds at play where you're like, Okay, I am not only just documenting this, and in I've heard you speak of, you know, Ansel Adams as a an influence in like making fine art out of photojournalism. And what do you feel elevates an image from a a snapshot, if you will, of what's going on, of what's happening in the room, whatever, to that level of fine art photojournalism.
Pete Souza 11:54 Well, I don't know if the bin Laden raid photo is fine art.
Casey Fatchett 11:59 I'm saying it is. I'm not. I'm saying that that is just like I think that there's something so striking about that in the eyes of all the people on that shot, that is what draws me into that photo and why it pops up and discuss such a historical moment. But I'm saying,
Pete Souza 12:14 Well, and, and it, you know, the the, I think the viewer feels what I felt, hopefully, and the viewer feels what They were feeling, which was intense, anxiety and nervousness, probably about what was happening. Because, look, you had, yes, these are the most powerful, powerful people in the executive branch of our government. They're all in that room together, but in this moment, there's nothing they can do to affect the outcome of what they were monitoring. It was, you know, totally up to other people, meaning the Special Forces guys on the ground. And so, you know, that's what I was feeling. I know that's what they were feeling. And hopefully that photograph captures that, you know, emotion. So to answer your question, I mean, I think in this particular case, it's that it this photograph provokes some emotion in the viewer, and I think it puts you there with them in a unique way, despite, you know, the lighting in that picture sucks. You know, it's not, it's fluorescence lighting. It is what it is. I mean, it's like, you know, and it's not even lighting and, and, but I think the emotion and the moment overwhelms that. You know, you mentioned Ansel Adams. I mean, Ansel Adams could not have used the zone system in that room. Just wouldn't have worked.
Casey Fatchett 14:17 Yeah, I think it's a common thread through your work, I think is drawing the viewer into the experience of that moment. Like there's a photo you have from like firefighters outside, and it's like freezing in the the the fire trucks are completely frozen over, and it just, I feel like I'm drawn into that moment, and I can just feel how cold that moment is. And I think that's, that's the sort of thing that you're, you're, you're, there's an emotion, there's a feeling that you're getting just automatically from those photos. I.
Pete Souza 15:01 Yeah. I mean, I can remember that day like it was yesterday, and that was in 1982 I mean, I remember how I felt. And, you know, it was minus 26 degrees that day, and I I felt like that picture shows freezing my ass off, and so, I mean, that's, you know, there's a, there's a song by The Lumineers musical band. I'm happy to be friends with those guys. But in any case, they came, they came out with this record, their last record, bright side. And there was a song called am radio, and they had sent me an early mp three before it was actually released. And I remember I was driving through the upper peninsula of Michigan, listening to this mp three that they sent me. And this song comes on for the first time. And there's a line in the song that that goes, if the photograph doesn't bring you back. And I swear to god, I almost drove off the road because it, I mean, the song was about a relationship, and it didn't really have anything, wasn't really about photographs. But that line, the moment, yes, so speaks to me. You know,
Casey Fatchett 16:33 I mean to me as well. I think that I like to tell people that photography is my favorite form of time travel, because if it's good, it puts you right back in that spot, in the moment people, the greatest compliment I feel is can feel as a photographer, is if somebody looks at one of my pictures and goes, I feel like I'm there. I'm that. I that. I feel like I am in that spot. I don't know if you feel similarly,
Pete Souza 17:07 yeah, I mean, the, I can't remember, well, this came up in, actually, in another podcast, which was the went, when is still still photograph first struck me was after the Kennedy assassination. I was eight years old, and a couple of days later, I was watching live on TV as Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was being booked at the Dallas jail. I'm watching this live on, you know, my parents little black and white TV, and Ruby shoots Oswald, you know, as we all know, I'm watching it, and I don't know what just happened. You know, it was just kind of like, and then I saw the newspaper the next day, and I saw blanket on his name. Guy from Dallas times Herald photographed Bob Jackson nailed the picture, and it's like, holy cow. You know, this still photograph shows me what happened, whereas the video that I was watching showed me nothing. So that was the first time where the power of the still photograph really hit me in a powerful way.
Casey Fatchett 18:33 I think that there's a moment in history that I that I also have, that the Challenger explosion like, is the same sort of, like, I don't know, a feeling of, we were watching it in school when it happened, and then they just shut the TV off. Like, there are teachers just shut the TV off, rolled the TV out, and didn't say anything about it. You were in the White House during the Reagan administration. At that time, I think that, like afterwards, the the images I remember, the cover of Time was the was just a picture of the explosion, and just the in that his that that moment has lived with me since then, since I think I still have that copy of the magazine somewhere, which,
Pete Souza 19:31 yeah, I mean, and for you, imagine I was Working in the Reagan White House. Reagan did not watch it live. I mean, if we go back to that that year, I mean the launch, shuttle launches had become somewhat routine. You never want to say routine, but, and this one had been delayed a few days, and then it. And then the day of the launch, it was delayed a few hours. And so they, you know, he wasn't going to just sit in front of the TV for five hours waiting for it to launch. So he went on with his business, and then heard that the somebody came in and told him that the, you know, there'd been an explosion, and he went back to the little TV in the private dining room, and that's when I walked in and got pictures of them watching the replay of the explosion. And that's an emotional picture too. Matter of fact, the the the, if you know all I should say, start out every picture that that White House, official White House photographer captures, whether it was on film during Reagan or digital during Obama, every single frame ends up at the National Archives so that day, while they're watching the replay of the Shuttle explosion, I remember I was down low with a 28 millimeter Leica lens, and at one point, as it right after it exploded, Reagan closed his eyes for quite a while, like 15 or 20 seconds, and not in his head, but I think he was saying a prayer. But when you looked at the pictures, it looked like he was it looked like it was a blank, you know what I mean. So we chose another picture where his eyes were open. But when you mind, the emotion for me was was a picture that has never yet been seen. You can go to my proof sheet at the Reagan Library and see that frame.
Casey Fatchett 22:01 So sometimes, sometimes the still image fools you, exactly. I got a question about the process there. You brought it up a little bit that every frame goes to the National Archive. You photograph presidents in two vastly different technological eras, from Reagan with film to Obama shooting digital. And you've mentioned that, like, a lot of the like, people didn't see rig the photos from all the photos from the Reagan presidency until years later, whereas we were getting them in the Obama White House, were like you mentioned, they had an Instagram account, and things are going on on social media, and you're seeing them, I don't know, the same day, and probably in some cases, but like, what is that? What was that process difference, like, from shooting film to digital as they like, is there a team of people who were behind the scenes who were processing your film, or, like, taking your cards? Like, how does that work? I'm just the technical nerd. Part of me wants to is curious.
Pete Souza 23:07 Yeah, let's start with Reagan. Reagan, we shot all film. Michael Evans, who was Reagan's chief photographer during the first term, had made the decision, decision to shoot color negative film. That was a decision that was made before I got there. I subsequently, when I came in the middle of the first term within, I don't know, a year or two, I started also shooting black and white film, because I just felt like the presidency. What that you know, in my mind went along with black and white film. All of our film was processed at a navy lab. They all had, you know, the proper clearances, and so that's where the film was processed. If the Press Office wanted to make a picture public, you can imagine the process like the film's got to go to the Navy Lab, which was not on the premises. It was five or 10 miles away. Send the film there. They process the film. They make proof sheets. They send them back to the White House. That in itself is, you know what, three hours, maybe, yeah, something like that. And then photo editor, Carol green and Walt at the time, would choose the frame. The best frame? Show it to think I just lost my connection here. Show it to the press office. They would sign off. We would call the lab, say, can you make five prints? Five, eight by 10 prints? Prints. Think how long that takes. Color prints, they then come back to the White House, and then the five prints are handed out to, you know, the AP, Reuters, whoever you know, Time Magazine, what, whatever. So that was the the process. It did not happen that often. Where we would do what was called a photo release. But that was essentially the process for the Reagan administration, for Obama, there was, well, I should say there was no such thing as social media or a website during rain. For Obama, there was white house.gov which was a, you know, a website. So we, usually, the people that are in the website might want a picture, I don't, wouldn't say every day, but almost every day. And then we started doing behind the scenes albums at the end of every month, and the process for that was myself and photo editors with on my team would choose those pictures we would show them to somebody in the press office, and then we would post them publicly. So that's sort of the way the process worked. If they the press office, the White House Press Office wanted to do a photo release right away. Obviously, with digital you could do that within, you know, a half hour. I mean, probably less if, if you had to, if
Casey Fatchett 26:47 you really needed to. I got questions, it seems like, and I think it might, we might be tricked into it because of digital. It seems like you had unprecedented access to Obama and the Obama White House versus like what we see of previous was, but it feels like maybe that's because of technology.
Pete Souza 27:13 I don't think so. I you know, we didn't we didn't make any pictures. We didn't do any of these albums, these behind the scenes albums, until, I think it was the fourth or fifth month of the administration, because I was trying to wrap my head around what the communications office was wanting to do. It was like, this was a whole new thing to me, yeah, and I was the holdout. I was, you know, believe it or not, because I was trying to figure out, okay, how is this going to work? And, you know, if we do this, I was like, I am going to curate the photos I didn't want, like somebody in press office, going through all my photos, and, you know, choosing like, oh, Obama smiling in this picture, let's use this one. That kind of thing is like, no, if we're going to do this, then we're going to do it the right way, you know, which is show people exactly what is happening. I had as my chief photo editor at the time, Alice gabriner, who had been the director of photography at Time Magazine, one of the best photo editors in choosing images you know, of anybody in the country. So, you know, it was a very professional photo journalistic look is but, you know, obviously, if you're a government photographer, it's not photojournalism, but that I wanted that kind of feel to what pictures we were making public.
Casey Fatchett 28:53 So this, this brings me to another question, how do you feel that the technology has changed, is switching out back into like journalism, as opposed to documenting. The presidency. But how the technology has changed journalism, specifically photojournalism, access like we can turn around images very quickly. We can, you know, that we don't have to worry about, like, different film speeds in our cameras. You know, there's, there's just a, how do you feel that it has impacted journalism?
Pete Souza 29:35 I don't know that I'm the right person about this. Other than I would say, I think there's some good things about it. There's some bad things about it. You know, I happen to be, I happen to cover the early part of the war in Afghanistan in 2001 and we technology was such that. Digital cameras were good enough for newspapers. They weren't great. They were good enough. So with a digital camera and a satellite phone, you know, I was working for the Chicago Tribune, they could publish my photos the next day. You know, that was kind of like the first war zone where that was, that was the technology was such, so that's probably a good thing, where people were getting a, you know, immediate view of things. The yeah, the bad thing? Well, just just an observation, more than I'll let, rather than render an opinion, if you were to take any, let's say, any president, presidential event right now, and you were to look at within two hours, you know, either getty images or Associated Press, you would see, like 150 pictures from from that event, whereas when we were shooting film, there was a lot more editing. When I say editing, I mean choosing of images that took place and you would only see three or four pictures. So now it's like, we're so overloaded with the number of pictures, it's it's hard to like, process out process in many ways.
Casey Fatchett 31:58 Yeah, it's saturated. In a sense, we're visually saturated. I think that, I mean, just the also goes into the 24 hour news cycle of just like, you know, everything is happening. So you don't have time to to sit with an image like we used to
Pete Souza 32:18 You know, let's take the attempted assassination of the current president when he was running for, you know, the picture that you know, everybody used was, you know, him raising his fist up, which was kind of like, you Know, he took advantage of a, you know, of a terrible situation where he almost got killed. And I remember the first time I saw, you know, I went through all the pictures online, and I saw Anna moneymakers picture of just seconds after he had been shot at, and he's down on the ground on all fours, and there's this look of angst you just can feel. You know, this guy's just been shot, and it's, to me, it's such a raw image. I know the image you're talking and nobody used that picture. Everybody used what I thought was just like, I don't know, I don't want to say safe picture, but you know, to me, that other picture was the one that, if you really think about it, to me, that was the that was the picture.
Casey Fatchett 33:36 It told the gravity of the situation. Absolutely, I know the image, yeah, it's, there's this, there's a sense of, yeah, I wouldn't say sanitary. In the the image that, like, the more distributed photo, seems to be like a more of a, yeah, safe, I guess is the word that you're
Pete Souza 34:02 I don't know if it's safe. It's just that the the the I mean, I would love to get I would have loved to have been in the newsroom when, when editors across the country had you know, were shown here the photographs that are possible. Which, which one should we use? And seemingly everybody used the same one, right, you know. And I would say, like, if I had been the editor, I would have been argument for the other one. Very, very, you know, I wouldn't let it go, because, to me, that was the picture. But anyway,
Casey Fatchett 34:44 yeah, I think that what you're Yeah, it can phase the the sever, the gravity of the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate. It has more of a the in. Intensity of how people felt in the moment. I think it goes back to, you're talking about Jack Ruby shooting, Oswald, like that, that moment, like they there's, there's the image that you're talking about from there, is it? There's, there's far more. Because I think I've seen the podcast where you talked about the image, or they talked about, like, you talk about two different photos. There's one that's like, that is very, seems very sterile. There's not a lot, because it's like, just before. And then there's the one you're discussing, where you really are up close, and you're seeing the moment that Oswald gets shot. And it's, it has, it's saying that image is saying so much more. Yeah, you're a big proponent of local journalism, having started in local photographer, what can we be doing to promote more local journalism?
Pete Souza 36:02 Oh, man,
Casey Fatchett 36:04 I know that's a heavy question. That's a
Pete Souza 36:09 Yeah, I mean, I think that is a sad situation in terms of journalism that staff staffs at local newspapers have been decimated. And I think it's not a good thing for democracy, to be honest with you, I don't know what the answer is. I just don't know.
Casey Fatchett 36:48 I think about like when I was I grew up in Michigan and and a small town, and we had the local, like county newspaper, and then there was a tiny our tiny town had its own little newspaper as well, and both of those have since, like shuttered, like the county newspaper, the bigger one I remember, you get a daily edition of the paper. And by the time when my parents passed away in 2020 I remember going like, the paper would show up and it was four pages and it's in half of it was wire stories, and it reminded me of, you know, when you looked at papers from the 1800s where you'd have, you know, like, Oh, this is the, you know, San Bernardino story From my like, is, it was all about like, you're only getting like wire service stuff, as opposed to, like local news.
Pete Souza 37:48 And it's, I mean, it's, it's, you know, I grew up, I mean, I started my career working for newspapers, and it's, it's sad to see what's what's happened to all the newspapers that I used to work for. As I said, staffs decimated. And I think it hurts local journalism, obviously, and I think it leaves a void and every community,
Casey Fatchett 38:20 yeah, knowing what happens to your what's happening to your neighbors, start to feel more and more isolated.
Pete Souza 38:27 Well, and I think, you know, this is my personal opinion, but I think this was one reason why covid became so political, is that, you know, the local, local newspapers were not, didn't have the staff to really report on what was going on. If we had found out, you know, that our neighbors and friends were the ones that were dying and local newspapers were were doing remembrances of them, maybe, maybe it wouldn't have become so political, I don't know.
Casey Fatchett 39:00 Yeah, hopefully it would have as we transition into, I think, a related topic, as technology is progressing and we're seeing AI influencing visuals, as we talked about you saying, like, just the bombardment of images that we see now, like you're saying, like you're seeing hundreds of images from any particular event, and just the you want to use the word cacophony, because it explained, but I don't know what visually that would be, of images, how do you feel, or what do you think about how AI is affecting how people look at visuals, how people are, whether they trust them or not, or whether they you know. Are falling victim to fake images?
Pete Souza 40:05 Well, I think, I think we probably all are falling victim to fake images. It's, it's something that the photojournalism community is wrestling with. I'm not really involved with that, but, but I'm keeping an eye on it, obviously. And there have already been several news photographs, I think, that have been faked in some capacity, whether through AI or other means, and and yet at the same time. And you know, like every photograph that I process now works its way through Photoshop, it doesn't mean I'm like altering the content, but with the click of a button, I can, you know, which essentially is AI. I can tone a photograph so it looks good, right? But if you take it a step further, you could also use Photoshop to create a fake image very easily. And that's scary.
Casey Fatchett 41:19 I think what frightens me is that the bar has been lowered, in a sense, like you look at like, you know, we've talked about Ansel Adams like he was doing work in the developing room and making toning changes and things like that. Is, is one thing that's different than like, okay, we're using AI to like it, you know, create a whole different thing here that didn't exist. And I think that the fact that that is lowered the bar for bad actors to create false images is what frightens me, in that thought,
Pete Souza 41:56 no, totally and, yeah, it's become it's, it's, it's become easier. The tools in Photoshop and other programs have become easier to do exactly what you're talking about, which is scary. I mean, I think that the the photo journalism commit community has, you know, certain guidelines on what can and can't be done. Right? You can adjust highlights and shadows and color balance and dodge and burn and sort of like what we used to do in the darkroom, all considered acceptable, but then removing content or adding content is not acceptable in photojournalism, right and now, the tools are so easy to to alter content that, you know, it's,
Casey Fatchett 42:56 I think that we were, there's a necessity for some sort of verification. And I think that I know that like, A has already worked on, like, there's a, like, a stamp in their images now that will show you what it this is what it originally looked like, but, and I think that there are other I think Canon's working on it as well, like they're, trying to counter it. Hopefully we are able to like, reach that point where that is, what is. There's an acceptance of because I feel like I, you know, there's almost like I have to be skeptical of anything that I see now, in some ways
Pete Souza 43:38 well, and I think that as a community, photographers and the photo community really need to educate the lay person. Yeah, because, like I said, every every image, every image that we see, or 95% of them, have made their way through Photoshop. That doesn't mean that they're altered, right? You know, and I think that we use the word photoshopped as a meaning that it's fake, right? When? When? In fact, every, you know, every news photograph works its way through Photoshop before you see it in newspaper or online, right? That does not mean it's fake, right? That just means it's been opened in that program the photographer has just did highlights and shadows, you know, and color balance and sent it off. That does not mean it's been quote, unquote, Photoshop faked. It's just, you know, so I think we're not doing a very good job of articulating that to the to the lay person.
Casey Fatchett 44:48 On a lighter note, I'm gonna, okay, I've got, I created this. This specifically for you three shots. Is there a shot? From an assignment in your career that you wish that you had got. Is there one that, what's the one that got away?
Pete Souza 45:10 I mean, there's probably, there's probably many, many, many, but the one that sort of like, you know, and I think every photographer has gone through this there. So this is back in the 80s when I was working for the Reagan White House, and he was going to go out and throw the first pitch at, I didn't remember Baltimore Orioles game or something or other, and, you know, he was just not a natural baseball player. So he goes out to the rose garden with one of his staff and is like throwing a baseball, you know, like, warming up. And I'm like, this, he's in his suit, you know. And I'm like, This is awesome, you know? I just thought, like, this is I got these great pictures of Ronald Reagan and Rose Garden throwing a baseball, you know, nobody else is around. It just had a really cool feel. And I remember going back to my office in the White House to rewind the film and realizing that I have not put film in the camera. You know? I mean, we've all, probably every single photographer that shot film back, back then, at some point, experienced that. But that was, that was, like, really agony
Casey Fatchett 46:50 for me. Oh, man, like it, just like it. I'm sitting here with, you know, the first film camera I ever owned, and, and I'm thinking about, there the times when, like, it slipped on the spool and just didn't, like, oh yeah, quite and I went to rewind it, and I thought, no, it's rewound. And then I open it up, and I'm just exposed half the role of film, those those moments of that is that is something that I think that can resonate with anybody who's shot film. Yep. All right, so next shot, is there something? Is there a photo you decided not to take when it was like, you use your judgment and said, like, well, this isn't part of my job. This isn't or do you feel like that? That's not that. That's never come up
Pete Souza 47:40 Look, there were photographs that were difficult to take. I mean, I'm thinking back during the Obama White House where, you know, he's meeting with families privately after, you know, mass shooting or some natural disaster, and it's just so hard to make those photographs, but I always felt that for, you know, for the historical record, it was important that I do that. And I mean, you know, the families knew that I would be there. They knew that we wouldn't make any of the photographs public. But even still, those were really hard photographs to make, but I felt duty bound to go ahead. You know? I mean, there were a couple times maybe I could, if I if I sense that the family did not work, if it was going to upset the family in such a way, I wouldn't do it. But actually, I don't know that that ever happened. I think most of them understood. I'm sure there times in my career where I where I didn't make a photograph. I can't think of one off the top of my head, though,
Casey Fatchett 49:17 that's okay. So then my last question is, because you are very much into the historical nature of it. If there was any moment in American history that you could go back to to cover as a photographer, what would it be?
Pete Souza 49:39 Well, I mean, I guess given my, you know, two stints in the White House, I would say I would have liked to have been White House photographer during the Lincoln administration, you know, obviously a pivotal moment in our history. And I. Um, I remember watching Steven Spielberg's film on on Lincoln, and just like, that's all I was thinking about. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine the still photographs when he's wrestling with all these? Yeah?
Casey Fatchett 50:20 I mean, yeah, just the to be the fly on the wall, I think there's, and to be able to document that. I funny story. I actually used to work in the studio. I used to do portraits in the studio where he had his portraits done in New York City. Yeah, and it's like every time walking in there, thinking about just thinking about being there in the same space, is just, is just a It's a strange feeling.
Pete Souza 50:54 So we had the film Lincoln, we screened it at the White House, and Spielberg was there. And then Daniel Day Lewis, who plays Lincoln, you know, he was Lincoln, it was like. And then after the screening, President Obama invited some of the actors and Spielberg up to the private living quarters of the White House, and it brought them into the Lincoln Bedroom. And at one point there's a copy, one of the signed copies, of the Gettysburg address in the Lincoln Bedroom, and at one point, Daniel Day Lewis went over to look at it, just him by himself. And I got made a picture of that, but I had chills like as that took place,
Casey Fatchett 51:55 just the, there's a, I don't know the energy is, yeah, energy is there. So as we sort of finish up here, what advice do you have for photographers who are looking to get into photojournalism, who are looking to document history in this, hopefully, to try to, like, come close to your level, but like, when they're starting out, what are those the people, I think, that people always see, like, the end results. They look at the photographers who you know, are working in the White House, or they're, like, working on major events, and they go like, Oh, well, you know, like they just somehow materialized in that situation. And don't think further back, like, where, like, you know, what are those first steps?
Pete Souza 52:53 Yeah, I think it's hard these days. I mean, because of the lack of opportunities at daily newspapers, which I think is a was, was the way to really hone your skills. Learn about photojournalism. I you know, I think newspapers were so important, and being able to do that, and now we have so few staff jobs that said, I think In general, I would urge photographers to photograph every day. In order to get yourself better photographically, I think you've got to be out there every day photographing. You got to show up. If you don't show up, you're definitely not going to make any good pictures, right? You know, so and then, like, get do some workshops. There's a host of photojournalism workshops, University of Missouri, university Kentucky, Western Kentucky. I mean, I could go on and on the Eddie Adams workshop. I think all those workshops are invaluable in learning a skill set on how to be a photojournalist. I think you've got to be vigilant about the truth and the Don't, don't get caught up in trying to, you know, we talked about AI, but also in terms of, you know, don't as a photo. A journalist Don't, don't direct your subjects. You know, learn how to go to a news event or any situation and take some time to figure out, okay, what is it that I want to show about what's taking place in front of me, and be truthful about it, but also be what's, you know, trying to decide what image, what situation, is going to really show what I see and what I understand, and I'm going to present to somebody else. And that sort of goes back to, I think doing it every day, you sort of learn intuitively how to do that. It's like, it's, there's not like five bullet points. Here's how you become a good photojournalist. You know, this is one that you got to. Every person has to come to it in a different way. I think in many ways,
Casey Fatchett 56:04 I think that there's what you maybe I'm wrong, but I think what you're saying is also intention. You have to come to it like, not just as like, I'm absorbing whatever is coming at me. I'm also being intentional about what is the story here, and what's what's happening, and how I'm presenting it.
Pete Souza 56:26 Yes, exactly. But I think your, your intention also has to be truth. Well, truth. I mean, sure, obviously it's your, you know, we all have our I think if we had five photographers go cover the same event, we might look at it slightly differently based on, you know, our perceptions, our background, the way we see. But you know, we're all looking through that viewfinder. And the viewfinder, unless you're shooting square format, that view finder for all of us is the same. So what are you going to include inside that viewfinder? You know, that's that's the key, key thing, and what are you going to not include? That's basically what photography is, right?
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Casey Fatchett 58:17 Hey there, listeners, it's time for what I like to call a little shameless self promotion. After years of planning and trying to get this project done, I have finally launched my online print shop. Yes, you can buy prints of my photos that way. You can support a small business and the podcast at the same time. Just head over to link in the Episode Notes and check it out. There are photos from Scotland, Italy, France. There's wildlife photos, there are amazing flower photos, and there are photos of the city I called home for 20 years, New York City. So many pictures to choose from, and they're more coming as I get the time to process them and edit them and get them online. You can choose from fine art prints, metallic prints, acrylic prints, and there are tons of sizes to choose from, whatever you might need. So you know, what are you waiting for? Bring some beauty to your walls and some inspiration to your life with a print from my fine art print shop, just click on the link in the Episode Notes. Go do it.
Casey Fatchett 59:29 Hey. Now for my favorite part of the show, what's that? Say? Useless information. This is always death. Pete, it's time for our useless information for this episode. Oh, okay, how do you feel about edible currency?
Pete Souza 59:52 What is edible currency?
Casey Fatchett 59:54 well, in the Aztecs and Mayans use chocolate as currency. Oh. Salt and black pepper were considered a luxury in the Middle Ages, so much so that they were used to pay rent and taxes.
Pete Souza 1:00:11 Well, I think if somebody were going to send me some chocolate, then, you know, I could, you know, deliver some services for them. I don't know that I would like they, if somebody wanted me to photograph their wedding, they'd have to send me a lot of chocolate.
Casey Fatchett 1:00:29 The really, the really good stuff, not just not off the off the shelf stuff. No, no, no. Pete, I want to thank you very much again for being generous with your time coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Where can people find you?
Pete Souza 1:00:50 Well, I I should direct them to my website, but, you know, I haven't updated it in, like, I don't know, five years or something. Pete souza.com and I'm fairly active on, still on Instagram, which is at Pete Souza. I quit Twitter. I don't really, I'm not really on Facebook, so probably Instagram is where you will see a lot of my archive work that I kind of post almost every day, and one of these days I'll get around updating my website.
Casey Fatchett 1:01:27 Well, I'll include those links in the Episode Notes for this. Pete, thank you very much.
Pete Souza 1:01:33 You bet Casey, thanks for having me on you.
Casey Fatchett 1:01:40 Hey, welcome back. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Pete Souza, and I want to thank him tremendously for taking the time to speak with me. You can view his work at Pete souza.com or you can follow him on Instagram, where he is very, very active at Pete Souza. And while you're following Be sure to follow the nerdy photographer at the nerdy photo on pretty much all the social media platforms that's at the nerdy photo, no dots, underscores or dashes, and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss out on future conversations with other amazing photographers. Oh, looks like one of these computers is still on. Let me see if I can just interface and download my images to the mainframe.
Casey Fatchett 1:02:31 By order of management, there will be no news until further notice. Well, that won't do now, will it? I guess we'll just have to take distribution into our own hands until next time, everybody stay safe and stay nerdy.