Capturing private moments of President Obama

"Instagram did not exist before the Obama administration. Now I have a chance to show my photographs to the public, instead of waiting post-presidency.”

Pete Souza (62) is the chief official White House photographer for President Barack Obama whose term will end early next year. In a recent interview with CNN, Souza said he was “happy to have more chance show my photographs to the public and communicate on many social media platforms as the White House photographer.” A photographer for the Reagan administration in the 1980s, he began taking photographs of President Obama during his term in the U.S. Senate in 2005.

Souza has taken about two million photographs in the past eight years during Obama’s presidency. The White House Instagram account, where images taken by Souza are uploaded, has 2.6 million followers and Souza has 485,000 followers on his Instagram account.

There are only few who can get access to unguarded moments of President Obama in the White House. “It is hard for anyone to see President Obama interacting with his daughters or enjoying the weekend, instead of him from the situation room or the Oval office,” Souza said. “From a documentary standpoint, I am the only person that sees him in all these different roles.”

In 2011, Souza was included on the U.S. magazine the New Republic’s list of Washington's most-powerful, least-famous people, claiming Souza’s photographs of the president have “influence in creating presidential images in the public.”

One of Souza’s most known photographs captures the moment that President Obama looks to be bowing to a boy, which was taken in May 2009. President Obama bent over to the son of a former National Security Council staff member for the boy to see if Obama’s hair feels like his. The image of President Obama bending over to a boy has struck many people. Souza said this photograph had become the most favorite photograph of the president among the White House staff members.

The photograph of an impromptu greeting President Obama shared with a janitor through fist-bumps in December 2009 made the public see how cool the president was. The image of President Obama watching live footage of the operation that killed Osama bin Laden with the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other cabinet members in the White House Situation Room in May 2011 showed his harder side. The image of President Obama making attempts a gymnastic split with the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team for the 2016 Rio Olympics received more than 73,000 likes on the White House Instagram.

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