The Big Show
In case you ever have to photograph there, the Oval Office is f/4 at 1/60 second on 400 speed film. "If you're shooting available light in rooms in the White House where you shoot day in and day out, you get to know the exposure," says Barbara Kinney, who was personal photographer to President Bill Clinton for six years of his administration, from inauguration week, 1993, to April, 1999.
Barbara was one of four official photographers for the Clinton White House, and she says it's an experience that's hard to sum up. "There are so many ways to describe it. First, it's hard work. The President worked long hours, and we had to have someone around all the time. If he went jogging at seven in the morning, there was a photographer along with him. It was our job to document everything—we worked weekends, traveled everywhere with him, put in basically the same hours he did.
"Then, of course, it's very exciting. You're in the big show. I think it's the dream of every press photographer to walk past the rope, to be able to go anywhere, and that's what we could do."
What Barbara liked best were the candid moments behind the scenes. "I'm not all that into politics," she says, "and some of the photographers reflected more of the political goings-on, which I had to shoot as well, but I liked the personal side, showing the Clintons as a family."
It took a little bit of time to get that kind of access to the family. "It's not like I walked in the first day and thought, well, let me go photograph the President or the family in a private moment. They have to trust me, and I have to get to know them."
What the President, his family and his staff got to know best was the presence of cameras. "Everyone is aware of the cameras, but it gets to the point that the photographers are around so much, they just don't see us. We become part of the scenery, part of the process."
Still, despite access, there were certain times that "you had to pick and choose when it was the proper time to be close, to be in there to shoot."
She tells of one instance in particular. "I'd just come out of the Oval Office, and I saw Chelsea going in. There's a peephole in the secretary's office door so you can see into the Oval Office, and I looked through and saw Chelsea sit on the President's lap. She was just home from school, chatting with him, and I thought, this is such a great picture, what should I do? Is it worth breaking into that mood, ruining that moment, going in there for a picture? Will the president get angry? I was pacing around outside and then I knocked on the door. I said, 'Mr. President, you might fire me, but this is such a great picture, can I take it?' And Chelsea looked up and said, 'Hey, Barb how are you?' and the President had a big smile and said, 'Absolutely, come on in.' And at that point, of course, there's no getting around that I'm there and I'm taking a picture. The picture I got is a good one, but it's not the same as what I saw from the secretary's office. Being in there changed it."
There were a few places she couldn't go. "We couldn't attend the morning's CIA briefing, and there were a number of times when the President would meet with National Security Council personnel and the Joint Chiefs and we'd need 'approved clearance'—meaning it had to be okayed ahead of time as opposed to most of the time when we could walk in and out wherever we wanted."
What was being said at sensitive meetings was never a concern for Barbara. "No matter what they were talking about, I'm thinking, I've got to get this shot. I'm not really hearing them. I'm shooting color, I'm using flash, I'm thinking about the best angle. They may cover up or turn over documents or maps, but all I'm thinking about is getting the job done."
Barbara knew from a very early age what the job would be. When she was 14 she began taking pictures with her dad's camera, found it interesting and fun and decided to stick with it as a career. Prior to her work at the White House she was a picture editor and photographer at USA Today for six years and also worked as a freelancer in Washington, D.C.
In 1999, she decided it was time to move on, to go back to "a normal life." Which took a little getting used to. "I went back to freelancing, but after the White House it's hard to get back to working for magazines. As a White House photographer you get the cover of Time and Newsweek, your work is everywhere and all your fantasies in a sense are fulfilled, so it's a little hard to figure what's next." In 2000, she became picture editor for Reuter's Global Entertainment picture service, and in 2001 moved to Seattle, where she is currently freelancing. Recent assignments include photography for USA Today and the Gates Foundation.
It may not be "the big show" anymore, but it's satisfying work. And because all her photographs from her years in the White House will someday be housed at the Clinton Library, there is the satisfaction of knowing that her images will always be a part of this country's history.
In the Bag
In the White House, Barbara used an F5 and N90s with SB-24 and SB-26 Speedlights. Today she's shooting with two F100s and a pair of SB-28 Speedlights. Her main lenses are the 20-35mm f/2.8D AF, 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G AF and 80-200mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S Zoom-Nikkors and an 85mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor ("a really nice little portrait lens").
She's recently added digital—a D1X , two SB-80DX Speedlights and the 12-24mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S DX and 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkors. In addition to using the D1X for assignments, she's photographing a personal project with it: a collection of images of "funky motel signs I see around the Seattle area.
"I got the D1X about three months ago," Barbara says, "and used it along with my film cameras on an assignment in Africa for the Gates Foundation. They like to transmit images right from the field." Her photographs documented a trip made by Bill and Melinda Gates as the foundation announced grants to combat malaria in Africa. "The main focus was in Mozambique," Barbara says, "and then went on to Johannesburg and Botswana, where the focus was HIV and AIDS—the foundation gives grants for that, too."
The images were sent back to the foundation for immediate distribution to newspapers and news services, but having digital images available also paid off for Barbara when she returned home. "I got back from the trip on a Thursday, and the next day got a call from the foundation saying the Washington Post was running a story in Monday's paper. They wanted to know if I had anything I could send right away for that story. I'm sitting there with 30 rolls of film that need to be processed, but because I'd also shot digital, I was able to edit and send digital pictures almost immediately." The result was a five-column image in the Washington Post. "It was great," Barbara says. "Having lived in D.C. for 21 years, I was hoping some of my old cronies would see it and it would answer the question, what's Barbara doing these days?"
