How a photographer shapes the way the world sees Joe Biden

From the moment Joe Biden steps out of the presidential armored limo known as “The Beast”, numerous cameras document the president’s every move. But only a photographer can sit in front of Biden in the car and capture him in his moments of silence and carelessness.

Adam Schultz, the new official photographer for the White House, is in the Oval Office aboard Air Force One and the Situation Room. He is with the president at high-level meetings, but also when Biden caresses his two German shepherds or throws a log on the fire in the Oval Office.

Schultz is not only documenting the Biden White House for history, but also helping to shape his narrative in real time. While news photographers can capture and post a strange moment or expose private notes accidentally left visible, the White House communications team uses Schultz’s photos as part of their messages.

Every photo he takes will end up in the National Archives, but millions will see the photos the moment they are posted on social media.

“Even though he is the president, he is still a very real person. He is a normal person,” Schultz told CNN. “If a fire needs an extra log, it will throw a log at it.”

Schultz, 37, is from Atlanta and worked as an auto mechanic while studying at Georgia State University. After college, he got a job at the Clinton Foundation in New York City and worked as an event photographer at the Clinton Global Initiative – a job that took him around the world and introduced him to important mentors. He would work with the lead photographer on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 and later become the lead photographer on Biden’s 2020 campaign.

Schultz has a good relationship with Biden. Over the summer, outside Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, Schultz took a picture of the then-smiling candidate on his beloved 1967 Corvette Stingray.

“It was just him talking about his car – and I’m also crazy about cars. I was a mechanic in college and that was how I supported myself. It was good to hear your opinion on this very special muscle car, ”said Schultz.

Although Biden has shown interest in his official photos, he is not as deeply involved in the process as President Donald Trump.

Trump was “really involved with the photos,” Shealah Craighead, the main official photographer for the White House during the Trump administration, told CNN.

“He likes to control lighting, production and the show basically,” said Craighead. Often, Trump himself chose which photo the White House released.

Every day, Craighead handed Trump a folder with images – they called it a “folder of the day,” she said – and she and the president talked about what he liked and what he didn’t like. Trump would give “quite direct” feedback, she said.

“Sometimes, he liked to be a little warmer with orange tones, so he decided he didn’t like it,” Craighead said.

Trump, who has years of television experience, preferred to pose for the camera and was not always comfortable with natural, spontaneous photos, according to Craighead.

Craighead, unlike Schultz, only met Trump the day before he took his oath of office. She received a call from then press secretary Sean Spicer days before Trump’s oath asking if she could photograph the inauguration. The other photographer they had enlisted for the event had not passed the vet, Spicer told her.

She described how to navigate the conflicting interests in the Trump White House and the challenges posed if the president, first lady, vice president and second lady were all at an event and in the same photos and wanted to post something on social media .

“Everyone has their own interest in what the initiative, the text or the message should be,” said Craighead. She said they would have to follow the “message hierarchy”.

Craighead also said he hired someone with experience in taking pictures of models and experience in the fashion industry to be Melania Trump’s photographer. The former first lady and her photographer “worked a lot together,” she said.

Schultz kept four people who worked at Trump’s photo office on his team, despite receiving advice from some to hire all of his staff. In the past, it was common for people in the photo office to be aware of the change of government, but it has declined with the recent White Houses, according to Pete Souza, official photographer of the White House of President Barack Obama, who also worked at the Reagan photo office. of the administration.

Biden looks at official photos from time to time, said Schultz, but does not manage them on stage.

At one point in the campaign, Schultz was editing photos on the campaign plane when Biden appeared. Schultz showed him an impressive photo of Biden preparing to take the stage with a large American flag behind him.

“He starts leafing through them and I’m like, uh-oh,” said Schultz with a laugh. “I told him that these are not the final images that are completely polished.” But Biden liked them and asked Schultz to send some to him. Shortly thereafter, the team placed a shortcut to the Flickr galleries on Biden’s phone.

Schultz was the only photographer on the Biden campaign team during the primaries, which meant long nights editing photos. He was there when the campaign was lagging behind in the polls, needed money and had suffered huge losses in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Souza told CNN that the official images of the White House give the world “a window into the inner workings of the presidency, but also help to reveal the character of the president”.

Souza took 1.9 million photos in the eight years that Obama was president. He spent more time with Obama than most and was one of the few in the room with him through all the ups and downs of his presidency.

“All the emotions he had as president I was present, so there is a kind of bond between us because of that,” said Souza.

Souza is perhaps the best-known White House chief photographer, and he became a pop culture phenomenon when he started trolling Trump on Instagram. Souza shared photos from the Obama era and wrote captions that looked like malicious comments about Trump. His account now has 2.8 million followers and his most recent book, “Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents”, continues what he started on Instagram.

The White House’s mobile content director, Olivia Raisner, praised Schultz’s ability to “tell a story with his photos, be it the story of a single event in the back of a school gym in Dubuque, or the story of the week of a Democratic National Convention. “

“If we could, voters and viewers would be in the same room with us,” said Raisner. “They would be at our campaign events, they would be at the Oval Office while President Biden is speaking with several leaders, but they cannot be, so we have to communicate this through videos and photos.”

Raisner, who worked closely with Schultz throughout the campaign, praised his talent and also the enthusiasm he brings to work, which she says she passes on to her colleagues.

“Adam has the confidence and respect of President Biden, so he is able to be present at these moments capturing the historical as well as the mundane,” said Raisner.

Schultz, whose formal training in photography consists of some classes he attended at high school and college, says he benefited from working and learning from other photographers at the White House.

He worked closely with Barbara Kinney, who was a photographer for the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 elections and a photographer for the White House during the Bill Clinton administration. He also worked with Paul Morse, a photographer for the White House during the George W. Bush years, and Ralph Alswang, a photographer for the White House under the Clinton administration. He also credits Todd Rosenberg, a photographer with whom he worked at the Clinton Global Initiative, as another instrumental mentor.

Everyone has advice for him. All the White House photographers he spoke to – from the Republican and Democratic governments – emphasized that he should not approach the role with politics in mind. Their main focus is to document the history of the presidency, they told him. Schultz agrees.

“It’s about documenting what that person is doing,” said Schultz. “It doesn’t matter if they are Republicans or Democrats.”