Photographer tells (almost) all
White House news photographers are a unique clan. They crawl around on the White House floor, dart into the Oval Office for a quick shot, perch on stepladders, wait in the Rose Garden, and travel on Air Force One and press planes to memorialize presidents, posed and unposed, for all time.
Former White House photographer Dennis Brack, 74, has brought this privileged workforce into focus in his recently published book, Presidential Picture Stories: Behind the Cameras at the White House.
It’s not only a close-up look at the work of White House photojournalists since 1920, but an inside story about how presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama have related to them.
Bantering with presidents
“How are you photodogs doing?” former President George H.W. Bush would ask the photographers huddled and standing at the ready in the White House to snap his picture.
Franklin D. Roosevelt called them “the boys.” Harry Truman dubbed them “the stills.”
Such relationships were important to White House photographers, as their access to good shots could be strictly controlled. Clearly, Brack was in good with many of them.
He photographed Lyndon Johnson showing his belly scar from a gall bladder operation; Gerald Ford clad in a bathrobe after a White House swim; Nancy and Ronald Reagan somberly walking through the U.S. Military Cemetery in Normandy, France; and Nixon waving goodbye to Washington.
That last one was “the classic Nixon Double Whammy, his arms straight out and both hands making the ‘V’ sign,” Brack wrote in his book.
“Photos should tell a story,” Brack said in an interview, with or without a caption. The Clinton years offered particularly interesting fodder, and were like “watching a Shakespearean play.”
On one especially propitious day, Brack snapped a picture of President Clinton and the First Lady with pained expressions after the president’s affair became public.
On the day of Clinton’s second inauguration, photographer Diana Walker got a shot of daughter Chelsea Clinton opening her coat to show her mother her very short skirt, Brack related. “The first lady’s body language made a caption for Walker’s photograph totally unnecessary,” he mused.
An impressive start
There are two types of White House photographers, Brack explained. Official photographers are paid by the government. The other type are news photographers, admitted to the White House on assignment for various news organizations.
Brack, who now lives in the Mt. Vernon area of Alexandria, Va., started taking pictures on assignment as a college student. He was represented by the Black Star agency, which has been a major New York-based photographic agency since 1935.
He continued moonlighting as a photographer — taking pictures for the Washington Post Sunday Magazine and Newsweek — even while studying for a law degree at the George Washington University Law School.
He obtained his law degree in 1965, but “I didn’t practice law because I knew I’d be competing [for business] with people who had a passion for law much like my passion for photography,” Brack said. “I would always lose!”
But he has nearly always won big in his 53-year career as a photojournalist. In addition to covering ten U.S. presidents, from JFK to Obama, he has been on assignment photographing world leaders, U.S. Congresspersons and Supreme Court justices, as well as documenting American wars, war protests, civil rights marches and riots, and a wide variety of human interest and entertainment stories.
During the first Gulf War, his photographs were on the covers of Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, Paris Match and many other publications worldwide. In fact, as a contract photographer for Time, he averaged a photo per week for 23 years.
For all this and more, he has been honored by the National Newspaper Photographers Association, the World Press Association and, last year, won the Lifetime Achievement Award from the White House News Photographers Association.
Collecting the stories
Over the years, Brack interviewed his fellow White House photojournalists and collected their stories. Last year, he pulled together the best photos and the stories behind them, including his own, to publishPresidential Picture Stories.
The heart of the book is a collection of photographers’ recollections of how presidents reacted to the people hired to take their pictures day and night — reactions that ran the gamut from friendly to hostile.
• Harry Truman treated “the stills” like pals, invited them on his morning walks and shared drinks.
• John F. Kennedy “was a great subject for photographs — and he knew it,” Brack wrote. But JFK had a rule: No photos of him wearing glasses.
• Lyndon Johnson required his advance team to always put the photographers to one side of the podium so they would only catch him on his best side. He also told the photographers in blunt terms whether he liked or disliked their pictures of him.
• Nixon was not keen on being photographed, believing that a good picture was one where he was posing with three people on each side. Photographers felt the Watergate crisis was a “gift that kept on giving” because of the many opportunities their multiple stakeouts provided.
• Jimmy Carter and his staff put photographers at the bottom of their list of favorite people. Apparently, it all went back to the first time Carter headed for the Oval Office, when photographers caught him slipping on the ice and the image was widely published. (It is also in Brack’s book).
• With his background in movies, Ronald Reagan was a natural in front of a camera.
• George H. W. Bush was a favorite of the photographers; he called them by name. He challenged them to horseshoe games and invited them to barbeques.
• President Obama is always polite to photographers, Brack reported, and once when Obama relaxed with them, he impressed everyone with his knowledge of sports.
Brack’s favorite president? “Bush 41,” he answered with no hesitation, referring to George H. W. Bush, the 41st president. “He was interested in you, personable, and friendly.
As the book evolved, Brack also felt a duty to chronicle some of the most significant White House photographers over the years. In one chapter, he salutes “heroes” — 14 news photographers whom he considers to be “the best in the business.”
What’s it like at the top?
Brack, like other White House photographers, has a special pass to enter the White House via the northwest gate. However, photographers are generally restricted to the press briefing room, built over the Roosevelt swimming pool, and to a separate work room where each photographer has a small desk for processing their pictures.
“No reporters are allowed in photo country,” he laughed.
He’s traveled on Air Force One and press charters. (He met his wife, the former Cindy Campbell, on a press charter flight where she was a purser for Pan American Airlines.)
He went to Iceland with Reagan and Bush 41; to Nigeria, Liberia, Latin America and Japan with Carter; and to Europe with Ford and Nixon.
Though such trips can be exciting, the work definitely has its frustrations. “Waiting is one of the things photographers do very well,” Brack wrote.
One of his funnier experiences was in a presidential motorcade in Poland, when President Gerald Ford was visiting President Lech Walesa.
The press jeep broke down, and the reporters scrambled to get into other cars. Brack ended up in the lap of a surprised Dick Cheney, then Ford’s Chief of Staff.
Why do this work — often requiring grueling hours and long stretches away from home?
“It’s the greatest profession. It’s instant gratification,” Brack enthused. “My secret? I work hard, and I’ve been lucky.”
To learn more about Brack and his book, visit www.dennisbrack.com and www.presidentialpicturestories.com. The self-published book is available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.