By Sterre Sprengers
President Obama and small children. They seem to be a perfect match. He hugs them. They like to hug him back even more. He makes them laugh. They are never afraid, sometimes shy. Children can disarm the most powerful man on earth. As well as everyone around them. They endear everyone who is looking on. The people in the pictures as well as the people who are looking at the pictures. At least, that is the purpose they serve.
@ Pete Souza/ The White House
You can see the entire ‘baby’ collection here.
For eight years, White House photographer Pete Souza took 20,000 pictures a week of Obama. That’s right, 20,000 a week, many of which were posted on the White House Flickr account. Sterre Sprengers, image editor at De Correspondent, has followed his work for years, in search of patterns – patterns that reveal relationships of power, etiquette, love. And patterns that subtly reveal the image of the president that Souza created with his images. As time went on, once he had firmly established the presidential image, he took fewer solemn portraits and more images that were lighthearted or artistic. Gradually his work for the White House came to reflect his own personal taste. That is an achievement.
Until Jan. 20th, when Obama’s successor Trump will be inaugurated, the John Adams will present once a day an image and a text from the project Sterre Sprengers published on the daily online news medium ‘De Correspondent’. You can see the entire project here.