When people ask me about photography, I usually say, “I dabble.” I took a couple courses in college. I’m not always in focus. I’m always longing for a better camera, a faster lens. If I have any knack in “visual art,” I suppose it would be photography. But I’m hesitant to call myself “a photographer” because of one name: Pete Motherfucking Souza.
Pete Motherfucking Souza is a PHO-TOG-GRA-PHER. Nay, THEE Photographer. (Specifically, the Official White House Photographer. But that sounded less dramatic?)
I follow the White House photostream on Flickr, and never before have I felt more reverence for the art of photography. You’d think there would only be so many ways to photograph the Oval Office, but Pete Motherfucking Souza LAUGHS AT YOU.
“Conference Call with President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon, FRAMED, BITCH.” — Pete Souza.
“So baller, I sit BEHIND the desk.” — Pete Souza.
“His shoes smell like eagles and hope.” - Pete Souza
“Aw, I miss my wife.” - Pete Souza
But in all seriousness, I gasped the first time I saw this photograph of Obama & Co. in the situation room, watching the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s mansion AS IT WAS HAPPENING.
If you wanna critique the composition, the neon lighting is less than ideal. The photograph is a little off-balance. Something’s intruding there, in the bottom left. But HOLY CRAP, right? He captured something so legendary. And this is BALLSY — I can barely photograph strangers at a major public event, and my boy Souza here is tripping the shutter while Bin Laden is getting the kibosh.
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