Wednesday, January 14, 2009

My Student, The First Photographer

Forgive me while I kvell about a couple of former students...

First, congrats to Pete Souza, on his Today Show appearance — and on his appointment as the official White House photographer for Barack Obama.

It's been a stellar year for Pete... and a stellar career.

Pete's book "The Rise of Barack Obama" made the New York Times' bestseller list in 2008. Pete was working for the Chicago Tribune when he began covering the president-elect long before Barack Obama became a household name.

Pete actually will know his way around the White House better than our new president, as Pete also was the official White House photographer for Ronald Reagan! Pete published a book of images from those years titled "Images of Greatness: An Intimate Look at the Presidency of Ronald Reagan."

You can enjoy his online portfolio here, with pictures not only of Reagan and Obama, but ranging from Wrigley Field to post-9/11 Kabul.

Pete was in one of my earliest photojournalism classes at Boston University, back in ... well, a few years ago.

And to prove that I'm a bipartisan professor, my former San Francisco State University student Shawn Thew has scored the current cover of Rolling Stone magazine -- with an image of a forlorn looking George W. Bush that was used for a humorous photo-illustration.

Keep up the great work, guys! Just call me Proud Prof!

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