• Pete Souza / The White House

    President Barack Obama makes aspeech to the nation on Afghanistan from the East Room of the White House, June 22, 2011. Pool photographer Pablo Martinez Monsivais is the first still photographer to shoot a live presidential address from the White House.

    Press photographer makes history shooting live presidential address

    By Rich Shulman

    Pool photographer Pablo Martinez Monsivais used two cameras, both equipped with sound blimps. One was on a tripod, directly below the television camera, and operated remotely.

    As Don Winslow of News Photographer magazine reported:

    A little bit of White House photojournalism history was quietly made behind the scenes tonight: for the first time an independent press photographer made live photographs of the President of the United States during a televised address to the nation.

    Until tonight, the old White House practice was to keep photographers out and then let them make pictures afterwards. All that changed after President Barack Obama's speech about the raid to kill Osama bin Laden.

    In May, Stokes Young explained the background of the issue in a PhotoBlog post.

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  • Obama seen from multiple screens during live televised address

    Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

    President Barack Obama is seen on live television screens in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 in Washington, DC.

    Photojournalist Chip Somodevilla found a creative way to tell the story about Obama’s speech tonight.
     
    Back in May, the White House decided to end the decades-old practice of re-enactments of presidential speeches for still photographers after a live televised address. Tonight’s speech marks the first since that announcement. Read Stokes Young’s post about the msnbc.com policy of using photographs from re-enactments.

    President Obama announces plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan during a national address from the White House.

  • Obama re-enacted the televised address Sunday night for still cameras

    By Stokes Young, nbcnews.com

    Updated, May 17, 2011:

    The White House said last week that they are stopping the decades-old practice of re-enactments. The New York Times' Lens Blog has a lengthy follow-up.

    Original post:

    Jason Reed, a White House photographer for Reuters, recounts:

    Once Obama was off the air, we were escorted in front of that teleprompter and the President then re-enacted the walk-out and first 30 seconds of the statement for us.

    The first image below is from the actual televised speech, the bottom two images are from the reenactment.

    NBC News

    President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden has been killed during a televised address on Sunday, May 1, 2011.

    Jason Reed / Reuters

    President Barack Obama reenacts his speech for still photographers after announcing on live television the death of Osama bin Laden.

    Jason Reed / Reuters

    President Barack Obama re-enacts his walk to the lecturn after announcing live on television the death of Osama bin Laden, from the East Room of the White House in Washington, May 1, 2011.

     

    According to a write-up by Al Tompkins at the Poynter Institute, this has been a longstanding practice in Washington, meant to keep camera noise from disrupting televised presidential addresses. Tompkins concludes:

    It is time for this kind of re-enactment to end. The White House should value truth and authenticity. The technology clearly exists to document important moments without interrupting them. Photojournalists and their employers should insist on and press for access to document these historic moments.

    Having been prompted to think about this issue this week, our point of view is that there's no reason for us to show pictures of a re-enactment when we can show you screen grabs of the actual address, even if we won't have as much choice or image quality. Yesterday, we replaced still photographs we published from Sunday's re-enactment with frame grabs from HD video, and will not use photographs of re-enactments on our site in the future.