{"id":47223,"date":"2016-06-01T00:03:15","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T00:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=47223"},"modified":"2017-01-16T01:30:52","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T01:30:52","slug":"pete-souza-photographing-the-real-barack-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=47223","title":{"rendered":"Pete Souza: photographing the real Barack Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pete Souza: photographing the real Barack Obama<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/a>
\n2016-05-29<\/p>\n

Jonathan Jones<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nPresident Barack Obama<\/a> fist-bumps custodian Lawrence Lipscomb in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building<\/a>. Photograph: Pete Souza<\/a>\/The White House<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Over two historic terms, official White House<\/a> photographer Pete Souza<\/a> has chronicled the most intimate, candid and comical moments of Barack Obama\u2019s<\/a> presidency<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a tale of two Americas. In Las Vegas<\/a> the casinos were humming with a hell-yes tide that was about to sweep the manic Donald Trump<\/a> to his most pumped-up victory yet<\/a>. In Washington DC<\/a>, civilisation still existed. In the week Trump\u2019s xenophobic bid to be the Republican presidential candidate began to look unstoppable, the man whose Americanness he has questioned was meeting 106-year-old Virginia McLaurin. In Pete Souza\u2019s<\/a> official White House<\/a> photograph of their get-together, President Barack Obama<\/a> cracks a delicious smile as the first lady dances with McLaurin, who was invited to visit the White House in recognition of community work she has done for decades in the US capital. The meeting was also a celebration of Black History Month<\/a> \u2013 and Souza\u2019s picture manages to be both intimate and historic. Here are three African Americans in the White House. The room they are in \u2013 the Blue Room<\/a> \u2013 is opulently decorated with gold stars, Empire-style furniture, and a portrait of some grand national father who holds a white handkerchief in his white hand…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>
\nNov 2009 \u2013 Obama<\/a> jokes with staff before the Summit of the Americas in Singapore Photograph: Pete Sousa\/The White House<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

…What made Souza such an ideal day-to-day chronicler of Obama\u2019s presidency? The answer is surprising. Before he recorded the White House life of America\u2019s first black president, Souza did the same job for the first Hollywood actor to rule from the Oval Office<\/a>. From 1983 to 1989, he was Ronald Reagan\u2019s<\/a> official photographer. Perhaps his most famous picture of that era shows Ronald and Nancy Reagan<\/a> meeting Michael Jackson<\/a>, who is wearing a spangly military-style jacket<\/a>. Reagan looks understandably confused \u2013 is this the king of pop or the commander of the Star Wars defence programme<\/a>?…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pete Souza: photographing the real Barack Obama The Guardian 2016-05-29 Jonathan Jones President Barack Obama fist-bumps custodian Lawrence Lipscomb in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Photograph: Pete Souza\/The White House Over two historic terms, official White House photographer Pete Souza has chronicled the most intimate, candid and comical moments of Barack Obama\u2019s presidency It was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,63,8,26,20],"tags":[23946,10877,147,2103],"class_list":["post-47223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-barack-obama","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-jonathan-jones","tag-pete-souza","tag-photography","tag-the-guardian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47223"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51189,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47223\/revisions\/51189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}