Trump's Official White House Photographer

White House photographers enjoy unprecedented access to the American President, and their unique perspective provide for memorable stories and anecdotes even years after they have left the Oval Office. In 2021 when President Donald Trump left the White House, it provided an opportunity for White House photographer Shealah Craighead to create her own photobook with selected photographs of Trump and the White House from 2017 to 2021. Unfortunately, her photobook may never be published. 

Shealah Craighead was the Chief White House photographer during President Trump's time in office, and had been preparing to publish her own book with selected photographs of President Trump as well as other significant images captured during that time. Initially, Trump was set to write the foreword to Craighead's book, a practice done by past presidents for their own chief photographers. However this changed later on when Trump's aides requested she defer this to make way for Trump's own book published in December 2021.

Although there are third party options available, a photo book from Craighead would have provided a unique glimpse into an insider's perspective of the Trump White House, and this would have been even more compelling coming from the official White House photographer. 

Official Photographer for Obama and Reagan

Pete Souza was Barack Obama's official White House photographer and has had a long career as a photojournalist. Souza started out as a newspaper photographer, but worked his way to the White House several decades ago even before becoming a photographer for Obama; in the 1980s, Souza was an official White House photographer for then President Reagan. After Reagan's presidency, Souza continued to work as a freelance photographer, and in the 2000s, covered Obama's rise to presidency before becoming his official photographer.

Unlike Craighead, Souza enjoyed the support of President Obama in publishing his photobooks, with his first one, "Obama: An Intimate Portrait" receiving a foreword from Obama himself. Souza has published other book as well, with his early photographs covering Reagan's White House still available, and recently launching "Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents" which contrasts Reagan and Obama's presidencies through Souza's eyes as a White House photographer. 

Other White House Photobooks

Even before Souza and Craighead, photography had been a staple of the White House, going back to the advent of photography itself. In fact, the earliest known photo of the White House goes back to 1846, and the oldest photo of a sitting US president was taken even earlier in 1841. In the documentary "The President's Photographer: 50 Years Inside the Oval Office", one can see the history of modern presidential photographers and how this practice shaped how presidents are photographed in the White House.

Trump's Official White House Photobook

It's unlikely that we'll see Craighead's book in the near future, but fortunately for us, there are several photo resources of President Trump's time in the White House, not least of which is the official Flickr Account of the Trump White House, maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration. There you will find almost 15,000 photographs of Donald Trump carrying out his duties as President, along with First Lady Melania and officials of his White House. This archive is comprised of photographs coming from all White House photographers (and not just Craighead). 

Not only is this above resource free to access, the photographs are also free to download at large resolutions. Some of the photos can be downloaded at 3000 x 2000, which should be enough for 8 x 6 or A4 sized printed images.

If you still want a hard cover edition of Trump's White House photos, there's also "Our Journey Together", the official photobook from Team Trump. This book contains selected captioned photographs from all of the White House photographers, curated by Trump's aide team. This book is a bit more expensive though, and signed copies by Trump himself command a higher price.

For a less expensive hardcopy option, there is the "Trump: The Presidential Photographs". This book contains over 250 photographs taken from official White House photographers. As a caveat however, these images were selected by the editors of William Morrow (the book publisher), so it's a third party selection of Trump's photographs. Still, it's a nice alternative if you're looking for a good photobook on President Trump's time in the White House.

• View the Trump White House Archived here
• Get "Trump: The Presidential Photographs" here
• Get "Our Journey Together" here
• Get "Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents" here
• Get "Images of Greatness: An Interesting Look at the Presidency of Ronald Reagan" here

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