Born in 1915, Yoichi Okamoto would become the first official White House photographer under Lyndon B. Johnson, establishing a precedent that survives to today. Okamoto photographed for the army during World War II, then joined the United States Information Agency (USIA), an entity devoted to public diplomacy.
In 1961, Okamoto met Johnson while he was still the vice president and photographed his trip to Berlin. Johnson liked Okamoto, and Okamoto started to accompany Johnson on all of his overseas trips.
When JFK was assassinated, Johnson invited Okamoto to the White House to take portraits of him, to which Okamoto responded, “Rather than just take portraits, I’d like to hang around and photograph history being made.”
Johnson agreed to Okamoto’s request. Compared to previous photographers like Cecil Stoughton who had only taken pictures of JFK at public events, Okamoto gained unfettered access to the president, documenting his most private moments. Some of Okamoto’s iconic pictures include Johnson meeting with MLK, Johnson meeting with Nixon and Johnson meeting some of his aides in a swimming pool.
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| LBJ meets with MLK. |
Okamoto would go on to tell David Hume Kennerly, the White House photographer during Gerald Ford’s administration who won a Pulitzer Prize for feature photography, that, “You just have to be there all the time. You can’t not be there.”
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| LBJ meets with Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon. |
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| LBJ meets with his aides while skinny-dipping. |
After Johnson’s administration ended, Okamoto founded Image Inc., a custom photo lab, and did freelance photography until the early 1980’s. In 1985, Okamoto committed suicide by hanging, but his legacy of White House photography lives on.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1985/04/25/photographer-yoichi-okamoto-dies-at-69/49e170df-c57b-420e-b6b9-6963f3fd66b4/?utm_term=.4c34ba151458
https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/photographing-the-white-house-from-the-inside/?_r=0
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-one-photographers-finally-convinced-a-president-to-give-him-full-access
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/yoichi-okamoto-lyndon-johnsons-photographer
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ReplyDeleteClear and concise post about Okamoto and his influence with President Johnson. I find it interesting that photographers like Okamoto and Joe Rosenthal can have such a profound impact on American history just with their pictures. Do you believe that photographers can have a powerful impact on our government?
ReplyDeleteFor more information on Joe Rosenthal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Rosenthal
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ReplyDeleteI found your blog very interesting because we often learn about the evolution of film and how it affected politics, but we seldom hear about the advent of photography. Since learning about Herblock and his cartoons, there haven't been many powerful political imagery that shaped the time period, but Okamoto's pictures definitely defined a new wave of photography. After Johnson, Nixon's campaign featured a photographer, Oliver Atkins, who followed him on the campaign trail and eventually became the white house photographer when Nixon was elected. Learn more about Oliver Atkins here: https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/forresearchers/find/textual/central/smof/atkins.php
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