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But I think if anything, Trump has accentuated how I feel because of the disastrous way that he makes decisions and how he just sort of bullies anybody that disagrees with what he says about things. Pete Souza (left) former photographer for President Barack Obama, being interviewed by director Dawn Porter during filming of "The Way I See It." One thing that you say toward the end of the film is that you feel like speaking out against Trump in this way means that you can’t work as a photojournalist again. So I’m nervous about it. So I don’t know that I changed my politics during the Obama administration, but I certainly came to really understand the importance of the presidency. Even in my twenties, I’m somewhat embarrassed that I wasn’t more knowledgeable about what was happening in the country. My editor Jessica Congdon had worked with me on the John Lewis documentary. “We’re going to have some fun,” Obama apparently said to Souza when they first started working together. Are you hopeful about the outcome of the 2020 election? To the deeper point about the feelings of being isolated — I felt anxious. And I didn’t find that the current occupant had any of those qualities at all. And I became even more outspoken in a more direct way. We all grow and evolve and I think that one of the great things that I see is that so many young people are getting involved politically early on, before they’re even at voting age. And so to have those bookends to a story where you have what John Lewis is fighting for and this is what we got was beautiful. “I knew that to be successful I just had to have access to everything,” Souza says of the unique job of photographing the president. So you have to realize there were a lot of swirling emotions for the previous two months, since the election and leading up to Inauguration Day. “The world works in mysterious ways,” Souza tells me when I ask how he ended up in the film, explaining that he was initially approached by Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern and her producing partner Jayme Lemons about appearing in a documentary about his work. But what was your impression of him when you were following President Obama around on Inauguration Day? And I’m like, this is going to go south really fast with his presidency. We wanted to evolve. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. Pete Souza commented, “I hope this film serves as a reminder about importance of the Presidency, but also how the power of the still image in behind-the-scenes moments can reveal the true character of the person holding that office.” Based on the New York Times #1 bestseller comes The Way I See It, an unprecedented look behind the scenes of two of the most iconic … And I actually saw both of them get really mad, but it would take a lot to get them to that point. And I think that probably lasted about a year. That was Souza’s first tiptoe from behind the scenes into the spotlight. Now, at the time I said this, which was a couple of years ago, we didn’t have COVID, we didn’t have Black Lives Matter, we didn't have disastrous forest fires. Souza, who served as the official White House photographer during the Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama administrations, is the subject of a forthcoming documentary, “The Way I See It.” Directed by Dawn Porter and due out in September, the film chronicles Souza’s trajectory from award-winning photojournalist to outspoken critic of President Donald Trump . It’s a story about leadership. I didn’t because I am not a big Instagram person. It’s hard to speak to the access that my successor has, because I really don’t know. “I have to admit, I had no idea what dropping shade meant,” Souza says in the film. Because I’ve been outspoken about a president, I’ve shown my opinion, I think it would be difficult for The New York Times or Time magazine or somebody like that to assign me to photograph a Trump rally, or a Biden rally for that matter. These are kids that weren’t even eligible to vote, and yet they were out there speaking out and created this organization March for Our Lives. My kids are always telling me how much I would love Instagram. I think Joe Biden just reeks of empathy. Plus, watch an exclusive clip from his documentary “The Way I See … “I like these drapes better than the new ones. I saw an interview where he said he’s not worried about his own safety. We chose themes that we wanted to lean into; empathy, crisis, family and leadership. I think the significance of John Lewis, his struggle, and the election of Barack Obama are inextricably intertwined. Yeah, the fact that he’s doing these rallies indoors is crazy. When we started, never in a million years would we have imagined that this is what it would lead up to. John’s message was, “Speak up, speak out and say something,” and that’s what Pete is doing [as a citizen]. “And of course I had lots of questions because it would mean giving up whatever anonymity I had left. I worked my ass off for eight years and put a lot of time in and I was tired physically, I was tired mentally, and I was really looking forward to being done with the job, to be honest with you. They’re the ones that are going to get sick! I was maybe three quarters into John Lewis when we started this movie. The fact that he knew how disastrous this could be in February and has completely downplayed it for the past six months—he should be impeached for that. And I don’t think Donald Trump gets that at all. “They were obviously posed pictures,” Souza, who worked as chief White House photographer under both President Barack Obama and President Ronald Reagan, tells me by email a couple of weeks after our longer conversation below about his new documentary The Way I See It, which will premiere commercial-free on MSNBC this Friday night at 10 p.m. He’s got like six American flags, six presidential seal flags, all these military flags. Once we got it down to the photos that we wanted to lean into, that’s when we brought Pete in, and he guided us to his favorites. What that gave me as a documentary person, is a confidence in their authenticity, and they were not staged, which is what you see in photos with this president. Yeah, I mean, I think that Donald Trump has blood on his hands. The other thing that happened was that we couldn’t be with Pete anymore. And these things he’s doing with the post office and giving out misinformation about mail-in ballots and not doing anything about Russian interference, which we know is happening. There were so many ways that these movies related. The way that Joe grew up in Scranton, he has that small-town thinking to every aspect of government policy. You were obviously disillusioned by his first acts as president. Can you go back to that day when you decided to start trolling Trump online, even if that’s not how you would have described it at that time? The director of the documentary Dawn Porter has said that from the beginning you told her that it was important for you that the movie came out before Election Day. How would you describe that story that you were trying to tell from when you started posting on Instagram? Comparing them to photos he personally took of Reagan in the hospital after he was shot by a would-be assassin in 1981, Souza says, “The pictures I made of President Reagan in the hospital were authentic and unposed, unstaged photographs.”, Asked why Americans should be outraged about all of the obfuscation by the White House over the reality of Trump’s illness, Souza replies, “I’d pose that question to any of the 215,000 families that have lost a loved one from COVID.”, Souza, who spent much of his career as a photojournalist for the Chicago Tribune, strove for as much accuracy and transparency as possible during his time in the White House. He has 1.9 million photos and that was a little daunting. It made us pivot to a more pointed story that we all need to speak up and say something. The emotions were just swirling around in my head and it was kind of twofold in the sense that there was a certain amount of relief that the job was done. And then they’re going to bring that back to their families and infect other people in the community. I mean, it’s in his DNA to be empathetic about people. I’m hopeful, but really nervous. Send it to The Daily Beast here. Yeah, I was trying to be humorous. Pete Souza Doc The Way I See It Is a Reminder of a Time Before Trump Watch an exclusive clip of the White House photographer remembering his … And I think the other thing too is every president has had two flags in the Oval Office. I feel like the films speak to each other. Plus, watch an exclusive clip from his documentary “The Way I See It.”. It’s not an issue movie, and that was liberating. I mean, you look at the kids in Parkland that started this movement because of what had happened at their school. What do you think the American people should know about Joe Biden that perhaps they don’t or that doesn’t get talked about enough? And if you were not paying attention to the news, you might not know that I was throwing shade. from Walter Reed hospital earlier this month, photo of Trump looking directly into the camera. As the official White House photographer, Pete Souza had an unprecedented view of President Reagan and President Obama. Do you remember why you decided to post that first photo of the gold drapes in the Oval Office? But what qualities do you think they shared that Trump lacks? It’s a story about compassion and humanity. Souza was everywhere, but it wasn’t until 2017 that he started sharing his work through Instagram and providing a window into the Oval Office and how Obama led the country. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not being made.”. The Way I See It premiered in … Yeah, but I think it would actually be an interesting assignment, even given how I feel about Trump, for somebody to assign me to go to a Trump rally. “Pete is dropping shade with a comment on drapes,” one follower wrote. While we were making it, we thought it was going to end with Trump’s impeachment and that would be a big moment, but the moments kept getting eclipsed, and if you notice, that’s not even in it. And there was a picture where it showed he had like 20 flags or something. Directed by Dawn Porter. ET. And I was somewhat reluctant to do that.”, But ultimately he says he felt like “this may be another way to tell the story I’ve been trying to tell in the last three-and-a-half years.”. When you see a series of ten photos, and you see the movements, you know that it’s an accurate representation of what was happening in the room. The new documentary, directed by Dawn Porter, is a giant leap. Was that intentional for you to make it as subtle as you could? I do believe, as John Lewis believed, and told me so many times, in the goodness of most people. A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on May 22, 2020 at 12:41pm PDT The Way I See It is currently in theaters. We needed to film more with Pete. And I think that’s a really good attribute to have as president, being able to keep your temper in check because you’re going to be faced with a lot of really stressful, important decisions. I think that I could do independent photojournalism, but I think it would be difficult to do that for a newspaper or a magazine. And I think what set me off the first day was that he sent his press secretary out to the White House podium to purposely lie about crowd size. He was under very strict quarantine in Wisconsin. In the new documentary, Souza points out that if the president was actually “monitoring” the raid when that 2019 photo was taken, as the White House claimed, the photographer would have been blocking the screen. He provided perspective. President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden talk with senior staff following a bilateral meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in the Oval Office, Feb. 9, 2015.

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