Former Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza’s journey as a person with top-secret clearance and total access to the President.
Pete Souza has seen it. He has photographed it. In his book by the same name, he comes from behind the lens of his camera to comment on what he has seen and photographed. At 10 pm, Eastern time on October 9th, following Rachel Maddow’s broadcast that night, the world will be invited to see what Pete Souza saw and photographed in his years as the official White House photographer for President Barack Obama. He was shooting pictures of Obama through all “the good, the bad and the ugly,” including the Sandy Hook school shooting, the search for and takedown of Osama Bin Laden, the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and the Charleston, S.C. Church shooting in 2018. As a photographer, those pictures were his contribution to the history of the 44th President. That’s what a photographer does. Take pictures.
Then along came Number 45, President Donald Trump, and as Souza watched and read Tweet after Tweet, he obviously made the decision to cast aside the ambiguity of the photographer as historian and take on the mantle of the photojournalist commenting on two Presidents and the legacy they will hold. In another book, ‘Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents,’ Souza tries his hand at something admittedly new to him: “throwing shade.” He does this in both the books and this film with few words but iconic pictures of Obama on the campaign trail, with his family, at his inauguration, relaxing in the Oval Office with visitors, tired, troubled, tortured in juxtaposition to the words and behavior of Number 45. Pete Souza proves a master at throwing shade!
This film will be released on September 18th. Get ready. Hold onto your hats. There will be radical reactions, of course, but be ready to view some of the most touching, memorable, funny, human images captured by Souza of the man he obviously admired and came to know in an unusually intimate way, Barack Obama. As Souza recorded the history, that’s simply what he was doing. When all was said and done, however, he realized he had recorded an exceptional history: the history of a real leader when seen alongside his successor in the Oval Office. He makes no attempt to be politically correct. He has accomplished many successes in his life, and he makes sure he leaves no doubt in the audience’s mind where he stands on the issues of leadership, civility, depth of feeling, and the behavior that makes the most powerful man in the world the REAL leader, the RESPECTED leader of the United States.
His pictures are powerful. As are his words. Get ready Americans. You will have the opportunity to see what Pete Souza saw. You can’t really argue with a picture. You know what they say: “(it’s) worth a thousand words.”
“The Way I See It” will open in Select Theaters Friday, September 18th
