Actually made me smile this photo album...
...until that cynical side of my brain popped into gear. How did Mr. Souza conveniently find himself so close to Henrietta?
And then when I saw the shot of Potus and Rahm
I asked myself, where was that photo of Potus and Collins taken from?
So, with much too much time on my hands, being a free lance TV editor, and not quite willing to commit to making the phone calls and emails that might get me a job, which I sincerely need having been out of work for a couple of weeks (which might not be long but for those of us foolish with money and the second half of the income coming in is around a seventh of what I bring in) I couldn't help but a-b'ing the oval office photos (to "A B" is to look at one after another, to compare and contrast). What was going on here, how did photographer Pete Souza squeeze himself behind those chairs that are so obviously in front of the fire place? And those apples, are they the same apples? And those tables at the ends of the couch, where are they in relationship to the Potus and Collins in the other photo? Around and around I went until I lost that cynical side and decided, yes, they may be staged, but they are staged damn nicely. Oh, and if we go back to the photo of Henrietta, we quickly notice she is in soft focus, the photo is really about the girl taking the picture to her left. I think it is best to let go of my cynicism and enjoy, as I did when I first started flipping through the photos, the fact that I was seeing sides, and angles and backs and fronts of places and people and things around the Potus that I had never seen before.