By B.L. Wilson
“Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents” is a study in contrasts, not so much a slam against President Donald Trump as a love note to former President Barack Obama from Pete Souza, Mr. Obama’s chief official White House photographer.
The book grew out of Instagram postings Mr. Souza began posting shortly after Mr. Trump took office that juxtapose tweets, news headlines and quotes from the current occupant’s first 500 days in office with photographs from Mr. Obama’s eight years in the White House.
It’s presented mostly in a humorous vein. But there also are photographs related to tragic and weighty matters as well, including Mr. Obama’s visible distress as he learned of the killing of children at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Conn., or the iconic picture of administration officials watching the capture of terrorist Osama bin Laden.
Mr. Souza spoke Wednesday evening at a joint George Washington University and Politics and Prose author event at Lisner Auditorium with every seat filled for his commentary on a slideshow of images from his book.
He flashed on a screen a tweet from Mr. Trump calling the North Korean president “Rocket Man” side-by-side with a photograph of Mr. Obama meeting Sir Elton John. “There’s only one Rocket Man,” noted Mr. Souza to gales of laughter.
The book begins with Mr. Trump complaining about estimates of the size of the crowd at his inauguration. That’s on the left-hand page. On the right-hand page, Mr. Souza states simply, “The biggest crowd in history was really on January 20, 2009. HUGE!” The flip side of the page is a photograph of the 2009 inaugural crowd extending from the steps of the U.S. Capitol to beyond the Washington Monument.
After reports that Mr. Trump had redecorated the Oval Office with ornate gold curtains, Mr. Souza posted a picture of Mr. Obama in the Oval Office with the caption, “Kinda liked the old curtains better.”
A commenter on his Instagram account posted, “Pete’s dropping shade with a comment on drapes.” That posting gave rise to the book’s title.
The photographer said he had no idea what “shade” meant. Reporters began calling, asking for interviews, which he turned down. Nevertheless, stories followed about the Obama photographer “throwing shade.” He figured he should learn what the word meant.
The idea for adapting the posts into book form followed the mega success of last year’s deluxe coffee table edition of “Obama: An Intimate Portrait.” Bradley Graham, co-owner of Politics and Prose, said the book was in such high demand most bookstores could not keep it in stock.
Mr. Souza was a national photographer for the Chicago Tribune when Mr. Obama was first elected to the Senate. He said he knew right away that the politician was special. Mr. Obama is not the first president he’s covered. He also worked as a photographer in the White House during the Reagan administration.
Mr. Souza closely followed Mr. Obama for eight years, taking hundreds of thousands of photographs at intimate and historic moments, observing him at work, with family and staff during the best and worst of times.
The worst day, Mr. Souza said, was when the shooting in Newtown occurred. He showed a series of images: a distraught president learning the news from security adviser John Brennan; Mr. Obama speaking to reporters in the White House briefing room; and Mr. Obama-the-father embracing his daughter Malia later that evening. There is a photograph of Mr. Obama at his daughter Sasha’s dress rehearsal for a school play he knew he would miss because he had to travel to Newtown to console families. In Newtown, Obama embraces the Wheeler family who lost a child whose brother heard the shooting while hiding in school closet.
He entertained questions from the audience about technical, political and sometimes personal matters. His best day? When he married his wife, Patti, in a Rose Garden ceremony. The worst? “The shootings at Newtown took everything out of me,” he said.
