Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The president's legacy is shaped in part by images. So
Speaker 1: our great grandchildren's idea of President Obama will be shaped
Speaker 1: by the eye of Pete Susa. For a certain set
Speaker 1: of Americans, it's easy to conjure his most famous shots
Speaker 1: Sasha hiding behind the couch in the Oval Office, the
Speaker 1: President running down a bright East Wing hallway with Bow
Speaker 1: as a puppy, the situation room during the killing of
Speaker 1: Osama Bin Lawton. Pete Susa has had a resurgence of
Speaker 1: fame thanks to his funny, sad, and undeniably pointed Instagram posts.
Speaker 1: He juxtaposes shots of the ex president with the latest
Speaker 1: Trump news. When the Muslim band was announced, Susa posted
Speaker 1: a picture of Obama laughing with a young girl in
Speaker 1: a head job. When Trump refused to shake Angela Merkel's hand,
Speaker 1: Obama showed up on Susan's Instagram feed, embracing her. These
Speaker 1: and other posts have earned Susa a huge fan base,
Speaker 1: two million followers, and one of the best selling photography
Speaker 1: books of all time. But despite his association with Obama,
Speaker 1: his first White House photographer job was with a very
Speaker 1: different President Ronald Reagan. We moved to DC, win I'm
Speaker 1: moved to DC and Michael Evans was the chief photographer
Speaker 1: then and you came on when he was with Reagan
Speaker 1: and you were part of a staff of people. What
Speaker 1: in your mind has changed in terms of people's relationship
Speaker 1: to a camera now that cameras are ubiquitous it in
Speaker 1: everybody's pocket. Well, I think what it does is I
Speaker 1: think every person now thanks that no matter what they're doing,
Speaker 1: it might appear on the internet somewhere. Maybe they're more
Speaker 1: suspicious now of you know, how they act and the
Speaker 1: gestures they make when you were working with that group
Speaker 1: of when I was working with that group of people.
Speaker 1: By the time I came in during Reagan Um, people
Speaker 1: were not phased by me being in the room taking pictures.
Speaker 1: People just went about their business. But it was much
Speaker 1: more cumbersome the process, relatively speaking back then, you're loading
Speaker 1: film into a camera. Was lighting an issue, the sensitivity
Speaker 1: of the lenses. I don't know that it was more cumbersome. Yes,
Speaker 1: you've got to carry extra roles of film in your pocket.
Speaker 1: That may be the only combersame part about it is
Speaker 1: you gotta lower every once in a while, you have
Speaker 1: to light Reagan differently than and and and both instances.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do almost everything available light and never
Speaker 1: never doing anything with lighting is the first thing you
Speaker 1: said to yourself when you're in the Oval Office. That's
Speaker 1: examining available light situation. Of course, of course they have
Speaker 1: good available They have good available light in the Oval Office,
Speaker 1: but not in like the Situation room or the Roosevelt Room,
Speaker 1: you know some of sometimes some of those rooms are
Speaker 1: not lit very well. And yeah, and from a photographer's standpoint,
Speaker 1: it's like ship, I don't want to be I don't
Speaker 1: wanna have to spend a lot of time in this
Speaker 1: room because the lighting sucks. But the Oval Office. The
Speaker 1: other thing is great about the Oval Office is the
Speaker 1: lighting in there would change depending on the time of
Speaker 1: the year. And like, for instance, when the leaves dropped
Speaker 1: off the trees and and the sun was lower on
Speaker 1: the horizon, you'd get this incredible light at different hours
Speaker 1: of the day. Yeah, and and and it would it
Speaker 1: would only be there during you know, like December, January, February,
Speaker 1: and then the sun gets higher and you're not getting
Speaker 1: any any direct light into the Oval Office. Then it
Speaker 1: becomes more flatter. So I was always looking forward to
Speaker 1: the winter months for the lighting reasons. In your childhood
Speaker 1: and your earliest collections, what was the first time you
Speaker 1: had your hands on a camera. I did not really
Speaker 1: take pictures until I was a junior in college. Um,
Speaker 1: but here's the thing that, you know, you sort of
Speaker 1: go back to your childhood and you to think about
Speaker 1: things that maybe you did have an interest and you
Speaker 1: just didn't even realize it. In nineties sixty five, my
Speaker 1: parents took me and my sister to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And we did all the tourist stuff, and there was
Speaker 1: this book called The Living White House that we got,
Speaker 1: which was like all the rooms in the White House,
Speaker 1: they are all these color photographs, was put together by
Speaker 1: National Geographic and there are some candid pictures of LBJ
Speaker 1: in there. I just thought it was the coolest book
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. And I used to look at that
Speaker 1: book all the time. I mean, it's still at my
Speaker 1: mother's house. And so there was something in the back
Speaker 1: of my mind that the whole White House thing really
Speaker 1: appeal to me. When you were young, oh not at all,
Speaker 1: not at all. You went to be you. I went
Speaker 1: to be you you were studying journalism. I was, I
Speaker 1: wanted to become a sportswriter. And then you went to
Speaker 1: Kansas when the Kansas State University for graduate work because
Speaker 1: they offered me a teaching assistantship and photography. But it
Speaker 1: turns out the best thing about Kansas State for me
Speaker 1: was they had a great daily newspaper, college newspaper, but
Speaker 1: they behaved as if they were, you know, a real
Speaker 1: newspaper doing real journalism. So I started working for the
Speaker 1: college newspaper. So the first time you use a camera
Speaker 1: to take pictures as your junior year of college, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a very quick hop from you picking up the
Speaker 1: camera for the first time to you teaching photography. I
Speaker 1: fooled a lot of that. I tell you about that. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean people think, oh, you graduated from Boston University.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a that's a big time school, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, they thought that I knew what I was
Speaker 1: doing and I was still learning, but I knew the
Speaker 1: basics of photography, and so I was teaching a basic
Speaker 1: photography class at Case State. When you pick up the
Speaker 1: camera for the first time would be what about it?
Speaker 1: Did you say to me? It was magic? Shooting a
Speaker 1: roll of film, the whole business of putting rolling that
Speaker 1: film up onto the real in the dark, and as
Speaker 1: you're shaking the tray, the image starts to appear on
Speaker 1: the paper, and I was like, this is what I
Speaker 1: want to do. You're in control from start to finish.
Speaker 1: You're the only one involved in making the picture, in
Speaker 1: developing the picture, and then in printing the picture. And
Speaker 1: what did you like to shoot back then, probably trying
Speaker 1: to do something with musicians. I was not very good
Speaker 1: at first about photographing people. I was very shy, and
Speaker 1: it was being so being shy affected how it was
Speaker 1: like sort of like to me. It was it was
Speaker 1: hard to relate to pe bowl when explain to them
Speaker 1: why I wanted to photograph them, and I was self
Speaker 1: conscious about it. And that was the biggest hurdle across
Speaker 1: knowing how to deal with people in a way that
Speaker 1: they would be comfortable to allow you to be in
Speaker 1: the room while you're taking photos. Did you identify right
Speaker 1: away that was an important component that you needed to
Speaker 1: make people feel comfortable to photograph them. I needed to
Speaker 1: make myself feel comfortable to be there. And the kind
Speaker 1: of photography that I was doing was not. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: my guess is when when you're a photographed, it's a
Speaker 1: photographer that wants to do a portrait of you and
Speaker 1: put you in a setting and there's lights involves sometimes
Speaker 1: or they're they're directing you a little bit, and the
Speaker 1: photography that I wanted to do is fly on the
Speaker 1: wall stuff I wanted I love, which I've tried to
Speaker 1: turn my portrait photography into that. I say, please, don't
Speaker 1: make me stand here and find some pos like you're
Speaker 1: painting me. I would every time I work with a
Speaker 1: photographer say let's talk, tell me a story about you,
Speaker 1: or I'll tell you a story about me, and then
Speaker 1: I'll stop. I have the sense to stop talking. But
Speaker 1: I'm still that pot still simmering of where we're adam
Speaker 1: terms of what we're discussing. So I'm distracted from my
Speaker 1: own self consciousness. I need to take my mind off
Speaker 1: the fact that we're taking my picture because I hate
Speaker 1: having my picture taking and so do I I mean
Speaker 1: the you do yeah, oh yeah, I can't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like the way I look, you know. But um,
Speaker 1: but for me, it was it was take what you're
Speaker 1: saying a step further. Uh, I didn't. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do a portrait at all. I wanted to be
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the first projects I did when
Speaker 1: I was just starting out at BEU was there was
Speaker 1: this dance class. Older people participating in this dance class,
Speaker 1: and I just kept going back and every day I
Speaker 1: would go there to photograph because I wanted to just
Speaker 1: sort of just like get the essence of what was
Speaker 1: happening there, not a it wasn't a big subject at
Speaker 1: the time, but for me learning how to do photography,
Speaker 1: this was a good situation to be in where people
Speaker 1: eventually didn't care that I was there, that I was
Speaker 1: taking pictures. I could get close to them, I could
Speaker 1: get whatever anal I wanted. So it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a learning experience of you know, just do and fly
Speaker 1: on the wall pictures. To when you've done in Kansas,
Speaker 1: where do you go? So I've done at Kansas State
Speaker 1: and I end up working for two small newspapers in Kansas,
Speaker 1: which was a great training ground. Well, I just stay
Speaker 1: in Kansas because it was a job there for you.
Speaker 1: You liked Kansas mostly because there was a job. One
Speaker 1: of my friends used to joke with me because One
Speaker 1: of the newspapers I worked for, the Chinook Tribune, had
Speaker 1: a circulation of six thousand. The town was maybe fifteen thousand.
Speaker 1: It was an afternoon newspaper, and one of my friends
Speaker 1: used to joke, if a dog crosses the street in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day, it might end up on
Speaker 1: page one because there was not that much happening town
Speaker 1: small town. But it was a really great raining to
Speaker 1: be to every day have to go out and you'd
Speaker 1: have to come up with a page one photo, a
Speaker 1: sports photo, and a business photo. Every single day. I
Speaker 1: was the I was it. I was it And that
Speaker 1: is probably the most pressure I've ever had in my
Speaker 1: life to do that every day. Um, but it was
Speaker 1: just a great training round because you how when what
Speaker 1: did it force you? To force you to take the
Speaker 1: most mundane situation and try to make an interesting photo
Speaker 1: that when it's in print, people are gonna look at
Speaker 1: and want to read the caption and maybe learn something
Speaker 1: new every day. I can't say that I succeeded every day,
Speaker 1: but I tried, and it meant a lot to me
Speaker 1: the one year of that then and then I went
Speaker 1: to the Chicago Sun Times. Uh So I went from
Speaker 1: a six thousand circulation daily newspaper to SIDS and um.
Speaker 1: It was one of those uh you know, somebody recommend
Speaker 1: me for the job and I ended up getting it.
Speaker 1: And which which specific job? Sports? Uh so general assignment photographers.
Speaker 1: I did a lot of sports news, features, whatever. And
Speaker 1: it was basically taking exactly what I did at the
Speaker 1: small newspaper in Kansas and trying to apply that to
Speaker 1: the big stity like a kid in the candy store.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. It was so much fun. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: covering big time sports, big time news. You know, there
Speaker 1: was the Mafia was really big then and Chicago and
Speaker 1: that was that was a component. Pete to me a favor.
Speaker 1: I want you to photograph me on my left side. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's my good side, right. I don't want to ask
Speaker 1: you again, Peter, don't take a picture of me on
Speaker 1: my right side. All right? We had no problem with you.
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta say you got the Chicago accident
Speaker 1: down pretty might sometimes for how long? So sometimes not
Speaker 1: very long. So see, I think I went there in
Speaker 1: December of eighty one and I left in June of
Speaker 1: eighty three because I got this call from Michael Evan.
Speaker 1: Now wouldn't did Evans explain to you? Did he offer
Speaker 1: any insights into why he called you? He knew your work,
Speaker 1: could you had you wont awards for your photography. He
Speaker 1: happened to have a photo editor working for him, White
Speaker 1: House photo editor, who I knew and had been following
Speaker 1: my career. And they're looking for people they think are hot.
Speaker 1: They're looking for they were looking for one person. I
Speaker 1: sort of fit the bill, and you know, my portfolio
Speaker 1: then was pretty good. I had one some award in Chicago,
Speaker 1: like Chicago Fire for the Year or something like that,
Speaker 1: So I had gotten some attention in the industry photojournalism.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty small community. You serve no everybody, And
Speaker 1: based on the photo editors recommendation, Michael brought me in
Speaker 1: for an interview and you know, offered me the job.
Speaker 1: Presidents from Johnson on chose their own photographer. Doesn't have
Speaker 1: to meet Reagan in order to get pass must not.
Speaker 1: It was Michael. Michael made the call. I think I
Speaker 1: met Mike Deeve, who was then deputy chief of staff
Speaker 1: and was sort of overseeing the advance office and the
Speaker 1: press office and stuff like that. So I think I
Speaker 1: did talk the diver beforehand. But it was up Michael
Speaker 1: made the decision. Were there ever moments of kind of
Speaker 1: wistfulness when you missed the range of what you got
Speaker 1: to do before basketball and mafiosa and everything, You've got
Speaker 1: to do pretty much what you wanted. Did you feel
Speaker 1: a little bit after some amount of time it was
Speaker 1: a limitation to it, or you never felt that way
Speaker 1: when you were in the White House. I was conflicted.
Speaker 1: I mean I was even conflicted when they offered me
Speaker 1: the job, because I was thinking, well, do I really
Speaker 1: want to do this. I was not a fan of Reagan's.
Speaker 1: Things were going really well in Chicago, so it's a
Speaker 1: tough decision to make. But help what helped me make
Speaker 1: the decision was what what you You always hope is
Speaker 1: that you're making pictures for history and if you're in
Speaker 1: the White House, But there there were times when I
Speaker 1: really wished I was, you know, back in Chicago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're shooting Reagan different from Obama beyond their personal I mean,
Speaker 1: the one guy's a movie star. Yeah. I mean every
Speaker 1: once in a while with Reagan, um, he'd be in
Speaker 1: the middle of the meeting and he'd he'd like see
Speaker 1: you taking pictures and like wink at you or something
Speaker 1: like that. And with President Obama, it was like he
Speaker 1: would forget that I would be even be in the
Speaker 1: room because so. But but it was a different circumstance
Speaker 1: in that I didn't have any kind of relationship with
Speaker 1: Reagan coming in. I didn't know him at all. I'd
Speaker 1: never met him. Uh, And I didn't feel like I
Speaker 1: was totally immersed in the Reagan White House the way
Speaker 1: I was with President Obama. Why because um, I knew
Speaker 1: President Obama for four years before he was elected to
Speaker 1: the presidency, already had established a professional relationship with him.
Speaker 1: Plus I came in as the you know, the chief photographer,
Speaker 1: So this was gonna. I was all in with him
Speaker 1: for forgetting about, you know, your feelings about the person. Politically,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do the podcast with somebody who
Speaker 1: I don't have some degree of either admiration for or
Speaker 1: interest in. UM. I respected Ronald Reagan, and I think
Speaker 1: he respected the office of the presidency. And I think
Speaker 1: because of that, I was able to say to myself, this,
Speaker 1: it's worthy for me to be here. Were there ever
Speaker 1: any episodes they were difficult for you? I mean, um,
Speaker 1: I always looked at it is I wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: glorify him. I was trying to, you know, accurately, honestly
Speaker 1: portray what was happening. Um. But you know, certainly during
Speaker 1: the Iran Contra affair, there are a lot of pictures
Speaker 1: that I made that were, um, where he was, you know,
Speaker 1: definitely down in the dumps and uh, not looking good
Speaker 1: and sort of agonizing of what he did, what he
Speaker 1: didn't do. And the world. You know, your younger listeners
Speaker 1: won't remember this at all, but back in nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: or the world was this is it was on cable TV,
Speaker 1: on CNN. I don't think there's Yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: big scandal, and I was right, and I was on
Speaker 1: the inside, and it was a weird place to be
Speaker 1: because even though his days were occupied with other issues
Speaker 1: that were coming up, you still have to deal with
Speaker 1: the economy and and he's having meetings on things that
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with her on Contra. That's still
Speaker 1: hanging over. It's in the air every single day, like
Speaker 1: like like describe when is the White House photographer welcome
Speaker 1: and allowed and when is he not? I think it
Speaker 1: differs in every administration. Let's go back to Reagan, because
Speaker 1: I didn't have relationship estab wished with him. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I would push for as much access as I could,
Speaker 1: but it but it wasn't the same as with President
Speaker 1: Obama at all. I mean I had total access with
Speaker 1: President Obama in a way that I didn't with President Reagan.
Speaker 1: So Jeff Salmy mentioned to one of my producers that
Speaker 1: Obama was curious about Reagan and asked you questions about Reagan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he knew I had worked for President Reagan. I said
Speaker 1: to him that I wasn't didn't have the same kind
Speaker 1: of access with Reagan as I did with him. And
Speaker 1: he said, well, what was he like? I said, well,
Speaker 1: to just be diplomatic about it, he was sort of
Speaker 1: a big picture president, and President Obama said, I want
Speaker 1: to be a big picture president. Former White House photographer
Speaker 1: Pete Susa. If you're hungry for more from inside the
Speaker 1: Obama White House, check out my interview with former Secretary
Speaker 1: of the Army Eric Fanning. My job is to oversee
Speaker 1: the army. The army budget is over a hundred forty
Speaker 1: billion dollars a year. Do you think we still afford
Speaker 1: to be a global power in the coming years. I
Speaker 1: think we can, but I think we need to think
Speaker 1: more creatively about it, as President Obama has been trying
Speaker 1: to do. There are such as to what we can
Speaker 1: spend and recognizing as he does, that national security is
Speaker 1: more than just the military. Uh it's it's a whole
Speaker 1: combination of things across the entire federal budget. There has
Speaker 1: to be some balance there. The rest of that conversation
Speaker 1: that here's the thing dot or org. When we return,
Speaker 1: Pete Susa tells more tales about Obama from inside the
Speaker 1: White House and beyond, and whether he'd agree to take
Speaker 1: on the challenge of the Trump White House political differences aside.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Now more with photographer Pete Susa. You first met Obama ware?
Speaker 1: I first met Obama his first day in the U. S. Senate.
Speaker 1: Uh So. I was working for the Chicago Tribune then
Speaker 1: based in Washington, and he's Ben, a Chicago politician, and
Speaker 1: he covered him no because I was in d C.
Speaker 1: But when he's elected to the Senate in Illinois and
Speaker 1: he comes to Washington, then it's on, you know, my
Speaker 1: watch too to photograph him, and so we Jeff Zeleny
Speaker 1: was then a correspondent in the in the Tribune Washington
Speaker 1: bureau with me. He and I hatched this plan to
Speaker 1: follow Obama's first year in the Senate and UM do
Speaker 1: four big pieces throughout the year and got pretty really
Speaker 1: good access to him in the Senate. And just because
Speaker 1: of that, where you're in there every day, Obama is
Speaker 1: doing this, he's doing that, this is a senator, you
Speaker 1: can sort of get to know the guy a little bit.
Speaker 1: I met his family, UM, and that one year kind
Speaker 1: of turned into two years because we started we went
Speaker 1: to Africa with him, and two does at six again
Speaker 1: as Senator UM. And just over time you sort of
Speaker 1: get to know the guy. He gets to know you.
Speaker 1: He sees that you work hard, he sees the way
Speaker 1: you work trying not to interfere with what he's doing.
Speaker 1: So I think he appreciates that you get it. He
Speaker 1: says that I get it, which is funny because that's
Speaker 1: very similar to a set photographer in the movies where
Speaker 1: someone is obtrusive and where someone is kind of they're
Speaker 1: kind of groping. You can see them and they're finding
Speaker 1: the ideal shop. They want you over the person that's
Speaker 1: in the foreground and the furniture and the painting on
Speaker 1: the wall, whatever. And I see them moving around, I'd
Speaker 1: say to them, will stage something for them for the rehearsal.
Speaker 1: Then you have to go, because I only work for
Speaker 1: one camera at a time. I will only perform for
Speaker 1: the movie camera. And then there were those rare people,
Speaker 1: like one out of ten they were ninja, and they
Speaker 1: would get all these pictures and I need even though
Speaker 1: they were there. Is that kind of how he felt
Speaker 1: towards you. Yeah, and I and and he says that
Speaker 1: in the introduction. I mean, I like the term ninja.
Speaker 1: I think maybe that's I start using that, uh, because
Speaker 1: that was my thing. I think I knew how to
Speaker 1: move around and not be a nuisance. I could go
Speaker 1: right behind him and show things from his perspective, and
Speaker 1: it didn't face him a bit because he just like,
Speaker 1: forget about me being there. A matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: got into an argument with him one time. Uh. He
Speaker 1: had this meeting uh scheduled with the Schwarzenegger when he
Speaker 1: was governor in the Oval office, and it was it
Speaker 1: was scheduled for after lunch. Okay, so at lunch time
Speaker 1: when he ate, i'd I'd always go run down in
Speaker 1: my office and eat at the same time, so I
Speaker 1: wouldn't miss anything. So it's lunchtime, I go down my office,
Speaker 1: I eat, I come back upstairs. Schwarzenegger's coming out of
Speaker 1: the Oval office. They just finished the meeting, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the funk just happened? So I started, like, you
Speaker 1: actually say it that way to the no no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, I said it to his personal sent Okay,
Speaker 1: I said, what happened happened? This meeting was supposed to
Speaker 1: Oh he changed it too before lunch. I go, why
Speaker 1: the hell didn't you tell me? By this time, he's
Speaker 1: like listening to my conversation and he's like, what's the
Speaker 1: problem here, And I said, Sir, Katie forgot to tell
Speaker 1: me that the meeting with Schwarzenegger was moved before lunch,
Speaker 1: so I didn't get any pictures of it. And he's like, now,
Speaker 1: you you were in there taking pictures. I go, sir, no,
Speaker 1: I was not in there. He goes, yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: were in there taking pictures the whole time. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I was not in there taking pictures the
Speaker 1: whole time. I was not in there for one second.
Speaker 1: But he was convinced that I had been in there
Speaker 1: because he was just so used to me being around.
Speaker 1: I guess the president is never coming up to you
Speaker 1: where his staff is af I coming up to and saying,
Speaker 1: don't use that, use that, don't use that. That's all
Speaker 1: up to you. In terms of at the White House.
Speaker 1: At the White House, I would be the final like
Speaker 1: editor per se. I had photo editor that worked with
Speaker 1: me that would uh, you know, send me what they
Speaker 1: determined to be the best picture. But I would always
Speaker 1: sign off on every picture before it went out into
Speaker 1: the public sphere because I was the guy who had
Speaker 1: the relationship with President Obama and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: be you know, just careful. Um. So it was an understanding,
Speaker 1: even unspoken, that you were going to make them look bad,
Speaker 1: you're gonna make them look good. The I don't say,
Speaker 1: I never know what that means, because I think if
Speaker 1: you look at some of this, a lot of the
Speaker 1: pictures that we made public that I don't think they're
Speaker 1: all about making him look good. I mean, I've got
Speaker 1: pictures of him learning about the tragedy and Manghazi and
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook where he doesn't look good, but I thought
Speaker 1: they were authentic? Is it government property? So every single
Speaker 1: picture that I took is now at the National Archives.
Speaker 1: We were not allowed to the lead a picture, Thank
Speaker 1: you Richard Nixon, because after Watergate nineties conference past the
Speaker 1: Presidential Records Act that all this material had to be saved,
Speaker 1: and including photographs was one of them. Not just the documents,
Speaker 1: but every photograph had to be saved. So every single
Speaker 1: photograph that I made is now at the National Archives.
Speaker 1: Why do you think you never worked for a White
Speaker 1: House for for a president in between? Because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to, You didn't want to. You could have pretended no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, I don't know. I mean it's it's the
Speaker 1: odds of someone getting two calls to go WHEREK at
Speaker 1: the White House as a photographer are pretty slim. They
Speaker 1: were both accidental in a lot of ways. I was
Speaker 1: an accidental with Obama. I just happened to be the
Speaker 1: Chicago Tribune and DC when he became senator. That's that's
Speaker 1: what launched me getting into the White House with him.
Speaker 1: Some presidents Bush Senior, for example, less photogenic. Do you
Speaker 1: think that determines what kind of a photographer? Then I
Speaker 1: feel bad for him. Because you know, he's just he
Speaker 1: doesn't look like a very stiff in front of the camera. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got the glass, the big glasses. Is not happy
Speaker 1: being photographed, to seem and son wasn't like that though, No,
Speaker 1: his son. I know forty three a little bit. I
Speaker 1: covered his presidency from afar Uh and he's he's actually
Speaker 1: a good photographic subject, you know Bush, just because just
Speaker 1: he's kind of a jokester and you know, like to
Speaker 1: rip people and yeah, playful and he's a good looking guy.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering what it must have been like for
Speaker 1: the White House photographer there with with Clinton. Do you
Speaker 1: think that there's times when you just go away and
Speaker 1: leave him alone to suffer with what he's going through.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is you know I mentioned
Speaker 1: before about Iran Contra, this is a Ron Contra times ten. Yes.
Speaker 1: And I was already working for the Tribune and in
Speaker 1: d C. And so I would go to these events
Speaker 1: as a member of the press to cover Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: And he was doing something, you know, on the environment
Speaker 1: or the economy. It was during the impeachment crisis, and
Speaker 1: all the news my editors, all they wanted is a
Speaker 1: certain look from Clinton. To go along with today's story.
Speaker 1: The picture was going to run alongside an impeachment store.
Speaker 1: They wanted a witherd right, and so to be the
Speaker 1: guy on the inside. Oh, I can't imagine what that
Speaker 1: must have been like, But so does the president or
Speaker 1: there or the times when they just dismiss you, they say, well,
Speaker 1: let's not take pictures today or this week. You know,
Speaker 1: if he's really struggling and suffering something like that. Are
Speaker 1: they allowed to take a pass like that or they
Speaker 1: obligated to leave themselves open to that every day? It
Speaker 1: is complete. There's no like ground rules. There's no there's
Speaker 1: no ground rules. It's based on the photographer's relationship with
Speaker 1: the president and either one of the administrations you served
Speaker 1: where you asked to step aside for a period of
Speaker 1: time while they endured something that was bothering them. And
Speaker 1: Reagan it was harder to stay in the room with
Speaker 1: President Obama. He never wanted everything. Yeah, so when Bush
Speaker 1: Senior comes in, forty one comes in, you leave? Where
Speaker 1: do you go? What are you doing in that period
Speaker 1: of So for nine years after that, I was a
Speaker 1: freelance photographer based in d C. Did some stuff for
Speaker 1: National Geographic When life was a monthly. I did some
Speaker 1: work for them. Would you enjoy doing what you had?
Speaker 1: Your break from being in that bubble with those people?
Speaker 1: It was fun. What was fun was trying to take
Speaker 1: the fly you know, they fly on the wall approach
Speaker 1: to sort of feature photography for National Geographic and UM
Speaker 1: learning about color and light more. You know, working back
Speaker 1: then and for National Geographic you have to shoot slide film,
Speaker 1: which it was very unforgiving. You have to get the
Speaker 1: exposure just right. You have to be outside when the
Speaker 1: light was just right. You wouldn't be outside at this
Speaker 1: time of the day at two o'clock or whatever time
Speaker 1: it is now, you do you want to be outside
Speaker 1: at like five thirty or seven am. So learning more
Speaker 1: about light and color UM. But freelancing was hard for
Speaker 1: me because I was not really good at marketing myself,
Speaker 1: and I had it was for nine years. It was
Speaker 1: kind of up and down. I had some roll highs
Speaker 1: and some real loads loads where I wasn't getting work.
Speaker 1: So being the White House photographer and and the for
Speaker 1: the Reagan for Reagan for all those years, that's not
Speaker 1: a guarantee of some kind of a put for you
Speaker 1: job wise, not a guarantee, and the I think when
Speaker 1: I left, uh the White House under Reagan, it wasn't
Speaker 1: like I was that well known. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the things that happened with President Obama is I'm known
Speaker 1: because of social media. When do you recall social media
Speaker 1: becomes relevant. Well, what happened was there's been this tradition
Speaker 1: since the Nixon days that the White House Photography Office
Speaker 1: blows up pictures, hangs them on the wall the West Wing,
Speaker 1: and then you rotate them out. And people were blown
Speaker 1: away by the pictures that I was choosing to put
Speaker 1: on the wall because it was the real behind the
Speaker 1: scenes stuff. And the communications people came to me and
Speaker 1: to go, we need to make these public. We need
Speaker 1: we need the public to see. And I was the
Speaker 1: hold out. It took me like four or five months
Speaker 1: to really get into wanting to do this, and I
Speaker 1: said to them, well, if this is the way it's
Speaker 1: going to be, then I need to curate the collection.
Speaker 1: I don't want the Press office looking over my shoulder,
Speaker 1: looking at every picture on the screen and saying, let's
Speaker 1: do this one. You gotta let the professionals. Because I
Speaker 1: had a really good photo editor who had been at
Speaker 1: time magazine. I said, you gotta let us decide which
Speaker 1: photos we're gonna make public. So that's how it sort
Speaker 1: of got started. It was the staff coming to me, uh,
Speaker 1: urging me to make pictures public um on. At first
Speaker 1: we used Flicker and then Instagram. You know, it didn't
Speaker 1: even exist until the second year of his presidency, so
Speaker 1: later on we started using Instagram. To what camera did
Speaker 1: you use when you were shooting Reagan nikon f M two?
Speaker 1: What camera did you use with Obama? So with Obama
Speaker 1: used a Canon five D Mark two, And why don't
Speaker 1: you switch from the one to the other. I looked
Speaker 1: at all the cameras, and I thought Cannon was the quietest.
Speaker 1: They had what they called a silent mode. It wasn't
Speaker 1: totally silent, but it was pretty silent. And it became
Speaker 1: essential for the work you do, totally essentially, and it
Speaker 1: was so much quieter than Nikon. It was even quieter
Speaker 1: than the like a digital cameras. Um And so that's
Speaker 1: that's why I chose the Canon. When you are doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing in between the two administrations, and did
Speaker 1: you say to yourself, you know, why am I going
Speaker 1: back here to do this again? For a second hit
Speaker 1: of this was it what what did you tell yourself?
Speaker 1: What was their reasoning to go back after you've done
Speaker 1: it for so long with Reagan? Uh? Well, I think
Speaker 1: it was because I realized that, you know, Obama could
Speaker 1: be a transformational figure in our country. I liked him,
Speaker 1: I liked his policies, and he was a great subject subject.
Speaker 1: I think it's his look. You know, he's tall and thin,
Speaker 1: but he just had this manner about him with gestures,
Speaker 1: with the presence of the camera not affecting how he behaved.
Speaker 1: Um the way you're gonna ask you about that in
Speaker 1: the words in the way that it's do you think
Speaker 1: that the camera truly captures the person for who they
Speaker 1: are or do you think there are people who are
Speaker 1: able to even fool a camera and make you think
Speaker 1: there's something that they're not or obscure something about themselves
Speaker 1: that they want obscure. That's a negative value. People can
Speaker 1: definitely do that, But people can't do that when they're
Speaker 1: being photographed every re single day, nine to six or
Speaker 1: nine to eight or whatever. There's no way you could
Speaker 1: fool a came that. Yeah. So, but you know, if
Speaker 1: if like I was only coming in for an hour
Speaker 1: a day or something. Sure, somebody could put on a
Speaker 1: show for an hour, but not when this guy is
Speaker 1: around you. Essentially seven, it wasn't really seven, it was
Speaker 1: more like twelve seven. That's what strikes me about Obama
Speaker 1: is that he was a guy with it was a
Speaker 1: certain kind of integrity to him. That's what came through. Well,
Speaker 1: the most interesting part of my job was that I
Speaker 1: saw him and all these different compartments of his life.
Speaker 1: I saw him as a dad, and I saw how
Speaker 1: he behaved with his children. I saw him when he
Speaker 1: was on the basketball court, and um, I played uh
Speaker 1: cards with him. Most competitive guy I've ever met my life.
Speaker 1: And the general public doesn't see that, but I saw
Speaker 1: that part of him. They sort of have glimpses of
Speaker 1: his family life. But you know, he loved his daughters.
Speaker 1: He loves his daughters and you I could see that,
Speaker 1: you know, all the time. To make in a sense
Speaker 1: that he, like other men who have had that job,
Speaker 1: it was painful for him not to be able to
Speaker 1: spend as much time with his family as he'd like to. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, one rule that everybody at the White House
Speaker 1: staff knew was at six thirty or seven o'clock. He
Speaker 1: was in a dinner with his family full stop. Now
Speaker 1: there are times where you come back down to the Oval,
Speaker 1: but he was going to have dinner with his family
Speaker 1: every night. It was actually easier as president than than
Speaker 1: as senator because as a senator, his family stayed in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and he'd come to d C like three or four
Speaker 1: days a week. I mean three, yeah, for like Tuesday
Speaker 1: through Friday morning or something. So there'd be at least
Speaker 1: three days that he wouldn't see his family, whereas when
Speaker 1: we were in town, he would see his family every night.
Speaker 1: With the president we have. Now, what do you think
Speaker 1: your life would be like? Now? Boy, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know one thing is. Under no circumstances would I
Speaker 1: have stayed on to be White House photographer. I was
Speaker 1: the White House photographer. Now it's someone that had been
Speaker 1: in the Bush administration and had been lower Bush's photographer
Speaker 1: for But I like, I just I don't think I
Speaker 1: could bring myself to be there and do that. Is
Speaker 1: it a man or a woman? It's a woman. And
Speaker 1: do you know her? Yes? Your book which I have here,
Speaker 1: Obama and intimate portrait is breathtaking. It's beautiful, it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful book because the subject is a very attractive guide
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, and someone who I support politically,
Speaker 1: which makes a huge difference. But but it also appeals
Speaker 1: to people, I think because of what we are dealing with. Now. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: he was Abraham Lincoln. What's a picture even that's a
Speaker 1: damn good picture I took. Well, here's here. You know,
Speaker 1: the goal is to always capture a photograph a moment
Speaker 1: that has mood and emotion, that's composed just right, the
Speaker 1: lighting is just right. And yet I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you there's a picture that only has one of those
Speaker 1: components that is one of my favorites, and it's the
Speaker 1: one on the back cover. Um it's a young African
Speaker 1: American boy touching the head of the president as he's
Speaker 1: as he's bent over, Because I think that tells you
Speaker 1: a lot about how he relates to um or you know,
Speaker 1: how a young kid relates to him. But also that
Speaker 1: even as President United States, at the behest of a
Speaker 1: five year old, he went ahead and bent over to
Speaker 1: let this little kid feel his hair, which I think, uh,
Speaker 1: how much tells you everything you need to know? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand. I understand. Um, well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing this, thanks for having me on and I
Speaker 1: I love your book. I think it's absolutely gorgeous. And
Speaker 1: you're right, it makes people wistful. It's tough because we
Speaker 1: certainly wish that we were in a different place when
Speaker 1: than we are now. But do you get to interact
Speaker 1: with Obama anymore? Run into Yeah. The last time I
Speaker 1: saw him was at the portrait gallery, then failing of
Speaker 1: the two pictures, he and Michelle's portrait, and then I
Speaker 1: saw him over Christmas at he had a holiday party
Speaker 1: at his office. Uh. He was wearing a Santa hat. Uh.
Speaker 1: People say, well, how's he doing? I go, well, the
Speaker 1: thing that I noticed is it's as if the way
Speaker 1: of the world has been lifted from his shoulders because
Speaker 1: for eight years, you're the guy everything is coming to
Speaker 1: your desk and and despite you know, you think of
Speaker 1: him as being relaxed, and you know that that's a
Speaker 1: big job to have. And I think that he is
Speaker 1: now enjoying life. Pete Susa's book of photos and stories
Speaker 1: from his years in the White House with President Obama
Speaker 1: is called Obama an Intimate Portrait. It's beautiful. If you
Speaker 1: already have that one. You can pre order Shade A
Speaker 1: Tale of Two Presidents, his next book of photographs. It
Speaker 1: takes susa's Instagram into hardcover framing, inspiring the photographs from
Speaker 1: the Obama White House with tweets and quotes from Obama's successor.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Two cook