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 an award-winning television producer who currently serves as WGBH's vice president for national programming. Prior to this role, he worked for 26 years at National Geographic, where he produced more than 25 films exploring topics from cockroaches and black widow spiders to sumo wrestlers and combat cameramen. In 2005, Bredar received the Emmy for Best Director for the National Geographic special Arlington: Field of Honor, an unprecedented and poignant look at Arlington National Cemetery. He holds a master's degree in US diplomatic history from Johns Hopkins University. To learn more, follow @bredarj on Twitter. Pete Souza was named President Barack Obama's White House photographer in January 2009. Prior to this, he was a photojournalism professor at Ohio University and a photojournalist for the Chicago Tribune. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling The Rise of Barack Obama and Obama: An Intimate Portrait. To learn more, visit petesouza.com or follow @PeteSouza on Twitter.