Pete Souza, a former Chief White House Photographer, spoke Wednesday, Sept. 26 at a public event sponsored by the School of Journalism and Mass Communications about his experience photographing two presidencies and the importance of creating images for posterity.
“I think more than ever, I think the voice of journalists is extremely important. We have a president that calls the press the enemy of the people and his communication people say that there are alternate facts,” Souza said. “There are not alternate facts. There’s facts and truths, and I think that journalists are the ones to separate fact from fiction, truths from falsehood.”
Students from the journalism school were encouraged by faculty to attend the annual Buchheit Family Lecture in W.W. Hootie Johnson Performance Hall to hear how Souza managed to capture sincere and intimate moments in both the Reagan administration and the Obama administration.
“I had heard about it in obviously some of my classes in the J-school. I’m in Professor Humphrey’s photography class, and he had been talking about it,” said fourth-year global studies and visual communications student Caitlyn Jennings. “Obviously, I’ve seen over the years the different photos. Love the ones of Obama with all the kids, thought they were great, but never knew who actually took them.”
Souza’s goal when his audience left was for them to understand both the role of a White House photographer, specifically how he fulfilled the role, and why the position exists. He believed his role was meant to create a wealth of artistic representation of a president for posterity.
“It reinforces how important it is to have people around to document things like this and years down the road we’ll still have all of these photos,” said Josh Jackson, fourth year studio art student. “And that access that he was given, it really shows in the quality and the amount.”
The photos Souza chose to share for the Buchheit Family Lecture were organized according to which presidency they were from and the specific moments in their presidency. Photos were shown of Ronald Reagan and his wife at Camp David and times Reagan spent with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The photos of Barack Obama were centralized around his best, worst and most emotional days as president.
While difficult moments of the presidency such as the Sandy Hook school shooting and the Challenger explosion were shown through Souza’s photography, he captured many moments where the presidents enjoyed life with their families.
“I think seeing the family life photos of Obama as well just showed how dynamic he is as a person where he’s still going out and running around in the snow or singing on the swings with his girls but then he’s also in these meetings where they’re hunting down bin Laden or all these much more serious moments,” Jennings said. “So I think that contrast, just getting to really see it all and getting to understand his life during those eight years is really interesting.”
The intimate details of both the heartwarming parts of Reagan and Obama’s lives as well as the intimate depiction of grief struck a chord with the audience. Many were in tears while photos of Obama comforting parents of Sandy Hook victims and the aftermath of the Charleston church shooting were discussed.
“Being able to see all of the intimate moments of the presidency and stuff ... for eight years we saw the very public, forward facing part of it,” Jackson said. “It was cool to see his family life and the kind of behind the scenes parts.”
Souza is the author of books about both Reagan and Obama, and he has a new book coming out comparing the imagery of the Obama administration with that of the Trump administration.