The Obama Presidency: New Official Photos, Year One

Clio the Leo

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Sun Jan-24-10 09:36 PM
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The Obama Presidency: New Official Photos, Year One

Edited on Sun Jan-24-10 09:36 PM by Clio the Leo

(some of these are older photos that I believe were recently uploaded to mark the end of the first year)

(Official White House photos by Pete Souza)

(file this one in the "Obama as pop-Jesus" folder.)
Feb. 10, 2009
�The President meets with the Democratic Blue Dog coalition in the State Dining Room. I had noticed the glasses of cranberry and orange juice sitting on a table in the doorway of the Red Room, so I backtracked to compose this picture from inside the Red Room.�

March 29, 2009
�It was a Sunday night in the Oval Office. The auto task force listened to the President before he made phone calls to alert key people about his plan to set deadlines for General Motors and Chrysler overhauls that was to be announced the next morning.�

April 3, 2009
�Aboard Air Force One, the President talks with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton en route to France. I thought looking through the doorway gave the scene a more intimate feel.�

May 19, 2009
�The President was leaving the State Floor after an event and found Sasha in the elevator ready to head upstairs to the private residence. He decided to ride upstairs with her before returning to the Oval Office.�

May 22, 2009
�We were flying to the U.S. Naval Academy aboard the Marine One helicopter and the President was reading the business section of the New York Times. He is a voracious reader.�

May 20, 2009
�It was a glorious spring day and President Obama decided to move his meeting with his senior advisors outside to the Rose Garden.�

June 4, 2009
�He absolutely loved visiting the Pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza. He wasn�t there for a photo-op; he was there to take it all in and learn as much as he could from the tour guide. One of the great experiences of that day for me was hoofing it up and down the narrow staircase inside with the President to the top of the Pyramids.�
(I always have to point out that the "tour guide" was Dr Zahi Hawas, head of Egyptian Antiquities and considered the the most prominent expert on ancient Egypt)

July 8, 2009
�This was a great scene just before dinner at the G-8 Summit in L�Aquila, Italy. As the leaders arrived, they spontaneously moved to a small patio outside. Several different conversations were taking place. Finally as dusk settled in, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, at far right, motioned for everyone to move inside for the dinner.�

July 11, 2009
�The President was walking to his limousine in Ghana and a group of hotel workers were waving frantically, trying to get his attention

July 14, 2009
�We hung a large print of this photograph in the West Wing and soon thereafter I started receiving phone calls and emails from White House staff that we had hung a jumbo print upside-down. I had to explain that it was in fact NOT upside-down, but it was a reflection of the press corps in an Oval Office glass table-top. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs joked to me later that even though he now understood the photograph, it still made him dizzy to look at.�

Sept. 1, 2009
�As the President talked with his legislative director Phil Schiliro at the end of a meeting in the Oval Office, I noticed out of the corner of my eye Press Secretary Robert Gibbs goofing with personal aide Reggie Love.�

Sept. 27, 2009
�The President and his daughter Sasha read one of Thomas Jefferson�s speeches at the Jefferson Memorial one Sunday night in Washington, D.C. The entire family toured the Memorial and later the Washington Monument.�

Oct. 14, 2009
�The President appears in deep thought as he and senior advisor David Axelrod listen during a climate change meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. A moment later, he was laughing at a humorous exchange.�

Oct. 29, 2009
�This photo was taken about 4AM after the President made an unannounced trip to Dover Air Force Base to pay respects to fallen troops coming back from Afghanistan. After meeting privately with the families, the President walked alone up the ramp of the cargo plane carrying the 18 caskets, all draped in American flags. I could see the emotion on his face as he walked from casket to casket, leaving a Presidential coin on each. When he was done, he paused for a few minutes, head bowed in prayer. I heard him tell others later how that was the most difficult moment of his Presidency thus far. Out of respect for the families, not all of who wanted their ceremony photographed, we can�t show those pictures (but they will become part of Presidential archive.)

Nov. 14, 2009
�We were on Air Force One heading to the Summit of the Americas in Singapore. Since the 1990�s, the host country for this Summit chooses a shirt that all heads of state wear to the formal ceremony. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs was showing the President pictures of past leaders wearing�shall we say�not the most dignified of shirts. At the Summit, the President joked that he looked forward to hosting the 2011 Summit in Hawaii, where everyone would have to wear Hawaii shirts and grass skirts.�

Nov. 16, 2009
�The President listens during a meeting aboard Air Force One as we flew to Beijing, China.�

Nov. 24, 2009
�The President and First Lady wait for Indian Prime Minister Singh�s motorcade to depart the White House at the conclusion of the first official state dinner for the Obama administration. The dinner was held in a tent on the South Lawn.�

Dec. 9, 2009
�The day we were leaving for Oslo, the President�s first meeting of the morning was with his speechwriting team. He said he had stayed up most of the night writing. I was surprised to see that he had handwritten the entire speech so I made a few close-up pictures as he went over the speech with his aides in the Oval Office.�

Dec. 19, 2009
�We returned from Copenhagen to a huge snowstorm in Washington. At one point, it didn�t even look like we could land at Andrews Air Force Base. Later that day, a Saturday, the President surveyed the snowfall from the Oval Office.�

Dec. 19, 2009
�The First Lady, Malia and Sasha were outside in the midst of the snowstorm playing with the family dog, Bo.�

Dec. 24, 2009
�It was Christmas Eve. The Senate had voted early this morning to pass health care reform. The President was about to leave for Hawaii on vacation. Everyone was in a good mood as the Vice President talked to the President and Rob Nabors, the deputy director of OMB.�

Dec. 29, 2009
�I thought this was an interesting juxtaposition between his role as a father, and his role as Commander in Chief. On vacation in Hawaii, here he is hugging his daughter Malia while NSC chief of staff Denis McDonough waits to connect him on the latest conference call following the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack.�

Jan. 16, 2010
�President Obama had called on the two former Presidents to help with the situation in Haiti. During their public remarks in the Rose Garden, President Clinton had said about President Bush, �I�ve already figured out how I can get him to do some things that he didn�t sign on for.� Later, back in the Oval, President Bush is jokingly asking President Clinton what were those things he had in mind.�

President Barack Obama views the Emancipation Proclamation with a small group of African American seniors, their grandchildren and some children from the Washington, D.C. area, in the Oval Office, Jan. 18, 2010. This copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which is on loan from the Smithsonian Museum of American History, was hung on the wall of the Oval Office today and will be exhibited for six months, before being moved to the Lincoln Bedroom where the original Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863.

First Lady Michelle Obama greets a young visitor touring the White House during a surprise visit in the Blue Room with family dog Bo on the anniversary of the inauguration, Jan. 20, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)

Jan. 20, 2009
�President-elect Barack Obama was about to walk out to take the oath of office. Backstage at the U.S. Capitol, he took one last look at his appearance in the mirror.�

The Obama Presidency: New Official Photos, Year One

"You. Rotten. Mother. Fucker."