In Hyderabad to speak at the PEP Photo Summit, American photojournalist Pete Souza visited India while it was in the grips of a polarising general election, its politics seemingly reduced to spin. This is something Souza knows a thing or two about.
As the chief official White House photographer for former US president Barack Obama, Souza is one of the most significant photographers to have used the power of the image, to build an image. Souza says that he didn’t see the embedded nature of his job as an impediment to the truth of the situation that he was photographing. My overriding concern was to make authentic photographs that captured, accurately and honestly, the mood and emotion of what was taking place.
There has been criticism, though, of the overdominance of the White House narrative, with limited access granted to the media, something that we see mirrored in India. Souza, however, is categoric that he was not a PR photographer.
I look at myself as a historian with a camera. While photographing, my eye was not political. I was there to witness, to document, to try and pay obeisance to history, he says. Whatever side of the debate one may be on, it cannot be denied that Souza’s archive of 1.9 million photographs is one of the most remarkable documents of our times. Whether it is a picture of Obama lying flat on the rug of the Oval office or the, now iconic, photograph of Obama bending over, so that young Jacob Philadelphia can touch his hair, Souza’s photographs are almost always endearing, making the most powerful person in the world surprisingly human.
It is difficult to predict how history would judge the Obama years. His personal charisma and geniality tend to airbrush the shades of grey that rest within his policymaking. Trump’s presidency makes Souza’s photos take on different layers of meaning.
Souza has been using Instagram to post photos that serve as a counterpoint to Trump’s words and actions. When his wife Melania Trump swatted away her husband’s hand in Italy, for instance, Souza posted a picture of Barack and Michelle Obama’s fingers, intertwined. Whether one calls this trolling or mere critique through hindsight, Souza maintains that he is respectful, subtle and playful. I am hopeful, he adds, hopeful that my country will survive Donald Trump.
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