The President's Photographer : Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office

"The President's Photographer" gives everyday people a sneak peek into life at the chief executive's side - providing a rare and intriguing glimpse of White House inhabitants and the professionals who capture their images. Intriguing photos transport readers into the life of President Obama, from breakfast with Michelle and the girls, to tense meetings with third-world dictators, and dazzling formal events. We are treated to an insider's view of previous administrations as well, beginning with the Kennedy years and the first official photographer in 1962. Author John Bredar also takes us behind the lens, into the often surprising world of the photographers themselves. "The President's Photographer" complements the National Geographic television special that focuses on current White House photographer Pete Souza, detailing a week in his life as he covers Washington events and Obama's trip to receive the Nobel Prize in November 2009. The book covers this and much more, taking a deeper look at 20th-century history and the White House photographers who chronicled it. Engaging chapters reveal the entwined relationships of photographers and presidents, from the Cuban missile crisis and Vietnam to Monica Lewinsky and 9/11. We examine the growing importance of the photographer's role in keeping the president close to the American people as the press is kept at arm's length...and the transition from film to digital as it has affected the photographer's work. A White House lensman sent out 2-3 photos a week in the 1960s - whereas Souza currently sends out 50 every day. Anecdotes reveal the pain and pressure of the photographer's job. We witness the travails of Yoichi Okamoto, who was fired (temporarily) over Lyndon Johnson's jealousy that Okamoto was profiled in Time magazine and he was not. The travels of David Hume Kennerly, so trusted that Gerald Ford made him an ambassador to South Vietnam in 1975. And the career of David Valdez, George W. Bush's confidante and fishing buddy.

John Bredar is Executive Producer of NGT and a multiple Emmy Award winner. Since joining NGT in 1989, he has produced more than 20 films exploring topics from cockroaches and black widow spiders to sumo wrestlers and combat cameramen. He is producer/director/writer of National Geographic's Inside the White House, the highest-rated PBS program for the 1996-97 season. In 2005, he received the Emmy award for Best Director for the National Geographic special Field of Honor, an unprecedented and poignant look at Arlington National Cemetery. He holds a master's degree in U.S. diplomatic history from Johns Hopkins University. Photojournalist Pete Souza was named Obama's White House photographer January, 2009. Souza has been a photojournalism professor at Ohio Univeristy and a photojournalist for the Chicago Tribune. His book, The Rise of Barack Obama, published in July 2008, hit the New York Times bestseller list.