Megan West(erby)

On Assignment: A Photo Op, More Like a Photo Hop - Lens Blog - NYTimes.com

The “pool,” a White House staffer once told me, is a “thing.” If the thing is sitting in the briefing room for hours or in vans outside a restaurant, it doesn’t matter. It’s a thing, like the Secret Service or the Truman balcony. Give the thing a picture or twoeach day, preferably scripted. If the president is meeting with a head of state, the pool is part of the ceremony.

When a photo-op is scheduled, the photographers, camera operators and reporters gather in the colonnade outside the Oval Office and wait — sometimes it can be as long as an hour — shuffling feet and making nervous small talk until the flutter of the fingers of the young staffer who calls, “Pool.”

The meeting is ended, the serious discussion dispatched and now the closing ceremony. Into the Oval Office comes the pool; like a miniature car with dozens of clowns pouring out of it. Double-stepping, anxious — a quick look around to see if the secretary of state is standing in the corner. Focus, snap, check focus, snap again. The visitor stares in amazement and emits a small laugh, and must think, “All this for me?”

The president might make a remark to the photographers. (”I hope at least one of these work,” Mr. Obama said.) The young staff members shake their heads, tsk-tsk at the sloppiness of the whole affair and seven seconds later, amid the cacophony of clicking cameras, begin chanting, “Thank you, pool.”

(can’t embed the video but it’s astounding)

20 May 2009 ·