[inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook and we want to hear from you. tweet us twitter.com/booktv or post a comment on our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. >> good evening and welcome to the princeton public library. i am the public programming library and it it is my honor of assistant director erica best and our staff to welcome you to this evening's program.

some thanks are in order. thanks to the incredible team of 10 city press for reaching out to the library and this opportunity to host the exhibit and the talk. as soon as we receive an email for our library, we knew we wanted to be a part. as everyone is well aware michelle attended princeton university from 1981 to 1985 so it seemed fitting to have this photograph in the public library where she spent with 4 years of her early life and take part in the bookstore that looks at her life in the white house. thanks to the council of princeton, maria and mark for hanging the photograph in our meeting room for us. thanks are in order to labyrinth books for handling the book signing that will follow the talk and discussion. encourage everyone to visit the

reading room to see the photos up close and personal once we are finished with the formal part of the meeting. i want to introduce to you amanda lucidon, photographer amanda lucidon had a front row seat to the events in the obama white house. for four years was the only female photographer on white house staff tasked with covering michelle obama. in fact she is one of a few female photographers in history, a position she held from 2013 through 2017. in addition to this prestigious appointment, she is an award-winning documentarian, filmmaker and former freelance photographer and now a published author. she attended indiana university of pennsylvania where she studied communications media and journalism and photography art institute of philadelphia. her work has been honored by pictures of the year international press photography association, journalism and

white house photographers association among several others. she is a photographer, filmmaker and public speaker based out of washington dc. we want to welcome amanda to princeton. glad you are here. [applause] >> thank you, thanks for having me here at this beautiful library and thank you for all to come tonight. thanks to my team for helping me create this beautiful book and exhibit the traveled with it. one of the points of having this book was to make it as accessible as possible which is why i am traveling at the public library. what i like to do is answer questions i get quite often and the first is how did you get a job like that?

did anyone else have that question? a few people, right? i have no idea. i am still pinching myself that it actually happened. for me, an important story to tell is i was a freelance photographer working for a newspaper and i took a buyout from the newspaper business and moved to washington dc to start my freelance photography business, a place that had a lot of opportunities. but i forgot to account that it is also supercompetitive. i was doing freelance photography work, that was the work that was paying the bills but i was also doing passion projects, projects that were really important to me. even though that was the work that wasn't being funded, that was the work that began to win the awards and that was the work that began to bring me

into influential circles in the photography community. at one of those events i met pete to the. for those who don't know who that is he was chief white house photographer. for barack obama. i met him once at this event and two years later he called me up and asked me if i want to apply for the job. my phone rang and i said you realize this is amanda lucidon, right? for me there is only one answer to that question, of course, i would love to apply for the job. then, surprisingly, i got to spend the next four years photographing president obama and mrs. obama. i spent most of my time photographing mrs. obama but went to 20 countries and got to see so many cities it was never my dream to visit. that is the most popular

question i get. just this a little bit. the other question i get is what is your favorite photo? i only have one child but it is like asking what is your favorite child to a mother? it depends on the day and how i feel. there is probably a favorite but i am not going to tell you. instead of telling you my favorite photos i will tell you the kinds of photos i like to make. i like to make pictures that are easy for me to focus on. maybe not. is the mike okay? it is easy for me to focus on the first lady because she is

so extraordinary and so beautiful. what i notice is the way people react to her. if i was always focusing on her face i would be missing is a way people react to her. i remember the first time i met her, what i felt and what i was thinking. i don't remember what i said, but at the white house i would see time and again how people react. i love this picture because these students are part of a program called turnaround art program and -- sorry. so they came to the white house to perform, the turnaround arts program goes into the lowest performing schools in the country and it has been proven that if you infuse the arts it can turn schools around so these students were part of an

artist school and their school had improved through this pilot program so they were invited to come to the white house and perform. they performed in the room next door and did a poem and a dance, their poem was about not judging a book by its cover and not letting circumstances define you so mrs. obama was moved by it and after the event she said where are those students? i want to surprise them. i was following her and they were in the map room. i stood in front of her and a few seconds later she walked in and said what are you doing in here? they erupted with joy. i liked living in all these spaces, such joy in each one of

these children's faces. i hear some people laughing. what do you feel when you look at this picture. fun? having a good time, joy. everyone loves dogs. can someone help me with the mike? it is distracting to me.

all right. technology is so important, sometimes it doesn't work. i am here now. i am in it. joy. this is early on, probably the first time i looked at mrs. obama, she is just like everybody else. i have a dog, a lot of times we set up events in the white house where we would do a taping like a public service announcement that would run on tv and sometimes white house tv doing that. sometimes someone from outside came to do that. this time we were setting up the easter egg roll and what i

found out was there are always, these seem to be pretty predictable environments but there was always the chance something spontaneous would happen especially when it involves president obama or the dogs. for this picture in particular, bo was ready to have his picture taken but sunny was the younger dog, with ideas what she wanted to do, this is a picture she was trying to get sunny to sit up and be ready for the video. i like taking candid shots. this is a picture i go to when i want to feel joy. surprise. this picture, we traveled to innovative garden programs at school. mrs. obama always seemed to

have -- we would land in the plane. it would be raining and the skies would be dark and this was an event we were going to on a rooftop garden and we get off the plane and the skies would part and the sun would come up and we would participate in composting exercises with young girls, they asked mrs. obama if she wanted to have gloves, i don't need gloves and they were demonstrating and she picked up this worm and they found it, picked it up, looked the worm in the eye and the gust of wind came, flying in the air. i feel i got lucky but i like testing images that have some

surprise. seeing, going back, you know this is mrs. obama, just her arm that face, those teeth, right? you don't need to say much more than that, glowing with admiration and those are the fun photos, this is at the national zoo and they were there to name the new pan to. i just love the way she is looking up at her. this picture, a group of girls from liberia and morocco and we went to mrs. obama's initiative that sheds light, 62 million

girls don't have the opportunity to get an education. they were actually invited, there was a documentary made about this and they were invited to the white house to watch this documentary, these girls from liberia had never been out of their own town let alone in a plane and brought to the white house so they were thrilled to be there and this is another picture you can live in these spaces. you can rediscover something new. i just noticed the other day i had always looked at all the girls faces, you see wonder and joy and shock and disbelief. i saw this and never noticed before. she is a teacher and not looking at mrs. obama.

she's looking at her students and is so proud. that is what teachers can do and what mentors can do and librarians can do and took me a while to find that. in a couple weeks might discover something else looking at this picture, you can share that with me. i think people think the official white house photographer, that sounds like it could be boring so when i edited the book i wanted to make sure none of these pictures felt official, i like candid. so i photographed president obama and mrs. obama at a

podium many times but there's something different about this picture. what is different? no shoes. what color is that toenail polish? it is blue. so i didn't expect that. that is why i like -- you always have to be ready because something could surprise you and this was surprising to me and i included it in the book. i like to make pictures that are visually interesting so this is a picture i took at the milan expo world expo in milan, it was called the mirror room and it is made of a bunch of mirrors and also a projector.

constantly projecting new scenes on the wall so each scene lasts maybe 10 seconds, 5 to 10 seconds. the interesting challenge was how do you disappear in a room full of mirrors as a photographer? you don't see me in there, right? so i found a crack in the room where two mirrors meet. i turned sideways and made myself as small as possible. and it worked. it worked. i realized as a white house photographer, very special position that you have access

to space that other people don't have access to so this is the kennedy center honors at the kennedy center washington dc, we have all seen this on tv but we have seen from the other side of the door when president obama and mrs. obama will walk out and waved to the crowd but this is a photograph from the presidential box. at this point there with me, a staff member and secret service agent who doesn't really worry about how much time i have to take a picture, two -- the door was closed, but always being ready and looking and trying to show something a little different. i like the photo for this reason and i like those images. moments of quiet reflection.

this is in cambodia and for me i got to travel to so many places i had only seen in magazines as a kid. to be afforded a unique experience and to be there with mrs. obama was such a privilege and i like this image because it feels very quiet and you wonder, or i wonder, what was she thinking? i don't know what she was thinking. i know what i was thinking, how lucky i am in life to be in such a special place and have such a special experience and to be in a place that is so old and so full of history and rich with culture was extraordinary privilege.

i like when people say oh to your photos. it warms my heart. that is how i feel about this picture because as serious and important role as mrs. obama had is the first lady, being a mother was the most important to her so i feel this picture or i hope this picture shows that. we were on the great wall of china, my first international trip, i wanted to do a good job and i was the only official photographer traveling, when you travel you encounter obstacles and it is constantly brushing your self off and getting up again and keep going and always be ready and when you are you get rewarded, i feel i got rewarded by a picture like this. this is one of my favorites and mrs. obama, looking out to the

distance of the wall and mrs. obama turned around and said take a picture of us so i took a posed picture and put my camera down and she grabbed her girls for a big hug and picked my camera up and took a couple more frames, i like this one better. does anybody know this picture? what emotion does this picture evoke? love? that is what i think, if you take president obama and his is obama or forget where we are,

maybe that is how you want to feel, that is the thing, that is how we all feel when we are in love. and look a little bit deeper? going back to the liberian girl i was telling you about this is in liberia so we arrived in africa. a place i always wanted to go my whole life, so much so that when i finally got there, 37 at the time, can i sit cockpit, and they let me. so pictures of us flying in and landing in a dirt runway and landed, it was raining, 45

minutes to get to those schools, the motorcade drivers and secret service agents were nervous about that that we made it to the school and met these girls, and you can't -- and it was really dark because of the rain storm, had a flash with me but didn't use it in a situation, keeping that intimacy, those who are photographers, i have been shooting at a low shutter speed, there was a dirt floor, hardly any books but these girls were really proud of this, some had to walk two

hours to get through dangerous situations. a lot don't get to study until after they are done and often that is by candlelight. i was really inspired by these girls and mrs. obama was too and these are the girls i made book for. when i was presented the unique opportunity to make the book i was asked how big i wanted it to be, coffee table book or an art book and to me it was all about accessibility, these girls are going to carry the book for two hours in their backpacks i wanted it to be lightweight, it doesn't have a dust jacket, how many of us struggled with a dust jacket even in the best circumstances, i wanted to keep it a price

point that was successful and affordable and those who still can't afford to purchase the book i wanted them to get it at libraries which is why it is important to be here and be traveling, you get to see the exhibit too and what is cool about that, those are the same prints and the same way we frame them at the white house. there are 4 million photos in the obama archive, and we go through images or editors, the best pictures in the east and west wing, it was really cool, people stopped, working so hard to accomplish so much, you don't get a chance to celebrate what they have just done, they are working on the next thing. pictures are great reminder what they accomplished for what

we had done or seen, always create to see people working on pictures and great if that person was mrs. obama or president obama. i would secretly cheer, i didn't see that, but that is the split nation of the book and how it was made and how it was designed the way it was, the turnaround art student, mrs. obama, president obama said to work hard and do well and once you have done well to turn around and reach back and help others. this opportunity has allowed me to do that. i was recently named a turnaround artist so i will be assigned to a school so i can help students like this to share my passion with

photography and the arts and a portion of the proceeds donated to turn around arts program so along with a book tour, we are visiting turnaround art schools so that concludes my presentation. there is plenty of time for questions. we have a microphone? >> did you develop an ongoing relationship you might at this time share and email with this is obama or get a note from her? >> mrs. obama and president obama were such an inspiration in my life i don't see that relationship ever disappearing. i am grateful to have that experience and that relationship.

>> what cities out west you go out to? >> we were traveling. so many. probably may be 100, 150 cities, we visited all kinds of places through all the different initiatives, what city are you interested in? i could tell you a story about each city. >> la, arizona, we -- portland, traveled everywhere so there's always need to walk to air force one and sees a name card that says welcome to air force one and move it on. really? it was like i was walking onto

the plane with my family members and people that came before me and all the people that share that last name. i traveled to so any places. >> i am curious about ownership of these photos, are you the official photographer, photographs in the official record, how is the copyright shared? the change there are 4 million pictures in the obama archives and we were releasing them on whitehouse.gov and social media sites. or the flickr sites available to the public. i have seen other books that include my photos so those are sent to the public and pictures that haven't been released yet i got permission to use those. the story also is you cover

copyright as a collection. >> i have a question regarding the title. the first lady have anything to do with it? >> she was one of the lights for me, "chasing light" represents a transformative time in my life. photography means to draw with light. as a photographer you could be chasing light your whole career but for me the deeper meaning is being drawn by people who are lights in our lives, being pushed to be the person you are not sure you could be. mrs. obama was an inspiration for me and she helped me become

that person. i figured along the way i thought i was chasing this lighter but then recognized i was the light too, all of us are light and we can share that light. >> was there ever a time when you were getting ready to take a photo and you froze? >> the microphone earlier? no, i don't think i ever froze. i recognized early on the question is when i started i followed a colleague of mine, lawrence jackson, the first within mrs. obama's presence. i was there to watch and learn how it was done and the way people reacted to her. some people laughed and some people cried. it was like a long photo line,

300 people to meet her and there were a bunch of posed photos so i sat there, had my camera but didn't take any pictures and watched the line of people come through and some people couldn't speak and some were crying, some were fanning themselves and so i realized in that moment, i felt the first time i met her too i won't be able to do my job effectively so that is the role i am here to do. i can't freeze. i learned that pretty early on. sometimes people ask do you ever feel you missed a shot? the truth is sure. there is stuff happening all the time. to explain how this happened, we go somewhere in a motorcade, long line of black cars, you are supposed to know what which

car to jump into and my car or the car i am riding in, not my car, is usually a few, four five back. when we arrive at a scene i jump out of the car and tried to run ahead of mrs. obama to get in the door, quickly get an idea what the light is going to be like and be positioned to get the right picture. i am 5 foot 4 so even when mrs. obama is walking i am still running so sometimes things are happening in between that time and i wish i got that shot but quickly recover and there's going to be something else you can make a beautiful shot but when i look back at my time there i don't think there was a moment in history that i missed

that and bigger events like state arrivals, we had a team of five photographers so often set up in separate places, left or right side, behind and we make sure for history we covered all the angles so in those cases if you ever froze or missed a moment someone else hopefully got it for the collection, for the archives so thanks for that question. >> between what your parents would be thinking as you were growing up between zen and calling you, photographers that can make a living. how many photos did you have to choose from and how did you go about choosing them? >> tell a story about my dad in

the beginning of the book but the last conversation was about president barack obama. my dad and i never talked about politics, it was the night before he the inauguration in 2008 or 2009, he said he reminded him of his father, he was a man of integrity and thought the world was changing. i went to the inauguration and didn't have credentials so first time in my career, since i had news from one coast to another and started over with my own business i didn't have credentials so i wanted to cover it, it was important, it was history so i woke up early,

out in the cold and i made pictures and felt the energy of everybody there that was there to witness history and tried to call my father on the way home, the phones were jammed because everyone else was trying to call their mom and dad or boyfriend, i learned later he spent the night watching the obamas go from ball to ball to ball to ball, he wasn't watching the way everyone else was watching, the way they were dancing and celebrating, looking for his daughter, who he thought might be a photographer in the room, there was a long way to go to make it

in dc as a photographer, so i think back on that time, maybe he knew something all along, called the up. to be there for that experience, into the white house with me. i showed a picture earlier on of my father, in my suit pocket, folded this picture of him. any time i get nervous or get overwhelmed or take myself too seriously, i would reach into my pocket and take a picture over my dad and look at and it was a silly picture of him with a snorkel mask making a funny face, so i did take him to the white house, to answer that

question, rainbows reminds me, so many thousands and thousands, i picked up the picture that felt like rainbows to me, that made me feel something that revealed something, felt special and that is how i edited 150 pictures so thank you for that question. >> i want to confirm what i heard earlier, one of the first female photographers, white house photographers, is that true? >> i wanted to ask if that is true, what is not true? ought to clarify during my time there, the only female photographer in the last four years, there were two female photographers before me, i

would say in history may be 50 white house photographers, a few of them are women, not many people had those experiences. i reached out to other female photographers that had that role to get that advice, so to answer your next question. are they always assigned to cover the first lady, what is the -- those are the questions i have. >> that depends on the chief photographer's structure, that can change, female photography, the mail photographer covers the first lady so it depends how that structure was in each

administration. >> i would like to know if you photographed this is obama and her mother, three generations together and my other question is at the inauguration, did you take photos of that as well? >> the first inauguration, so i got the opportunity to travel with mrs. obama. mrs. robinson joined us on the trip to china. mrs. robinson from there, i took pictures of three generations and to answer your second question, started after the second inauguration so i didn't get those pictures but love them too. >> forgive me if you mentioned

it and i didn't hear it. i was curious about your working day. did you expect to come at 8:00 am to hang around and wait for a staff member to say something is coming up or did they schedule you ahead of time, come tuesday or friday -- >> yes. it was a full-time job but not a typical job. it wasn't a 9-5 shift or monday through friday. official white house photographers, we knew what the schedule would be which was different from the press, didn't know when events were happening but covering things, things could change, there might be a statement, something president obama or mrs. obama is reacting to but for the most part we knew most of the things coming up and we would structure our day around those events. it was a long day for them and

for us. we were traveling on the weekend, probably worked there for four years, i didn't see much of my family. i am grateful they appreciated the special role it was to have this opportunity. what i can say is there were slow days and busy days, slow days could be busy days so you have to be ready. >> i was fascinated by the picture in the mirror room because the two women were looking at each other and not the magnificent mirror image and who was the other woman? >> the prime minister's wife of italy.

>> how much access to you have to the living quarters, the private rooms? >> those are spaces we were invited to, mrs. obama was hosting, the yellow oval, that was the space reserved, when you were invited to be there. >> a more general question about the role of the photographer. pictures from other administrations where the oval office, heated arguments and so on. any time sensitive discussions were going on and didn't realize you were in the room or photographers in the room, what happens in situations like that?

>> there was never a time we were told not to take any pictures. it was the second administration, so used to having a camera around is that we could be that fly on the wall and for me there were times it was an intimate setting talking about school for girls, could have put on a flash but that, when a flash comes on everyone notices that so it disrupts was happening so being mindful of what is happening in the room and respectful of what is happening but still able to make pictures and those are important moments to make. when you are in those really important scenes, take a breath and know how important it is and have the courage to make picture.

>> i have a question. like you, mrs. obama has inspired me a lot. so at the white house, did you ever take a selfy with mrs. obama? >> i wish i did, a great question. i wish i did. she took a lot of selfys. what i admire is we go to these events all over the world and she would give a talk and afterwords everyone lines up to meet her so people would be waiting to take a selfy or get a hug. what i thought was great was mrs. obama always took time to meet with people and that is so important because it wasn't ideal for staff members minding her time but she would say you

don't know what that means to the person who is there or what they are going through or what kind word means, so she took time to do those things which i wish i got a selfy, then i would have known, i have some posed pictures my colleagues have taken. i'm always behind the camera. a special moment like my daughter, i got to bring my daughter to meet president obama and mrs. obama so i'm grateful i have those pictures. >> you mentioned you like rainbows. in the actual rainbow dream you are traveling with. jamaica -- >> rainbow picture, i made a picture, i was traveling with

president obama, we landed in jamaica and sometimes we would fly in helicopters to save time in the motorcade, road conditions and stuff like that. helicopters always landed sooner than president obama's helicopter. there was a perfect rainbow, on air force one. it was probably going to go away and the president's helicopter didn't land yet. crossing my fingers, get here so he arrived and looking at the rainbow and making pictures of the jamaican delegation looking at the rainbow and i always wanted to be in a different place, wants to

complement his work, where can i be that shows something different? at the back of the plane, the wing of the plane, rainbow coming down, president obama walked up the steps he would be perfectly framed in the rainbow on the ground, looking at the rainbow, you know how long a rainbow lasts, please walk up the stairs to the rainbow. sure enough he did and the rainbow lasted and i took the picture, one of my favorites, he is perfectly illuminated in a rainbow on air force one. so i took the picture and i knew i got it and said thanks.

>> i want to say i have taken notice of the way you frame what you do and you say you make pictures, the comment is taking pictures and i love that you make pictures because you absolutely do with all the elements that are there. so thank you. appreciate that. >> is that rainbow picture online? >> it is. >> a great blog because all these rainbow pictures, sometimes you only get to choose one for the day. so he actually wrote this blog about how he was having a hard time picking them so he

included my picture in the mix. you can find that picture online. >> to have your book come out at the same time or a happy coincidence? >> happy coincidence. i was so glad before pete left for his trip that he dropped off the book for me and i lined up the cover, didn't notice this but if you line them up, it is perfect. and got the special edition too so a whole shelf of obama books. i hope you have them too.

>> thank you so much for sharing those beautiful photographs of mrs. obama and your journeys with him, something we wish we could have done ourselves. so what we are going to do, just across the hall to the right, please go in and look at the photographs. and in the white house, the white house wall, a signing line outside, the holiday season coming up so what better

way at the library, best gift you can give and thank you for the gift of tonight, sharing your journey with us and we hope to see everybody back here and thank you, see stand. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> sunday night on afterwords, astronaut scott kelly recalled his voyages into space in his book endurance. is interviewed by charlie

bolden. >> the third servicing mission to hubble. having become an official hubble hugger talk about what you believe the legacy of hubble is. >> it is incredible. it has been up there, you would know better than i how long it has been up there, 27 years. doing that kind of science on a daily basis and letting not only the scientists experience the data they get from it which is most of the stuff you don't see but the public engagement provided and let people get a sense for where we are in the universe which is pretty insignificant when you consider the images. it has been a great success, a great first mission for me.

>> sunday night at 9:00 eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> the exact number of political kidnap victim is being held today is secret. i don't know. the fbi would have that information. do they work closely with the cia? they compete with the cia and we know that story after 9/11 was the fbi and cia work together, the information would have prevented 9/11. one reason they compete is tribal warfare, they want a larger budget and greater power that as one fbi agent said, and greater accountability, extremely dangerous, donald

trump has said the cia like the american military will have the ability to fight in afghanistan and give greater power to the cia to greater latitude to use drones indiscriminately. in february 2002, and the first political kidnapping after 9/11, he was kidnapped in pakistan, 26 people involved in this kidnapping, the same number involved in mind. most were pakistani but it was an al qaeda operation. many people feel it was al qaeda's way of announcing to the world that they existed. what they did a few weeks before in 9/11, it was in the

political world, the political kidnapping world, their way of saying we are here and they introduced a new form of political warfare. kidnappings per se started in 1983, hezbollah taking terry anderson and other journalists in beirut. post 9/11, the focus because those people held by hezbollah, it was never a ransom demand for any of them. they were used as pawns in the united states and france and that was the first time, the second side to the two sided, suicide bombing when the marine corps barracks in 1983 and then 10 minutes later they bombed,

the first political suicide bombing in the afghan he theater took place in 1995, was orchestrated by the head of al qaeda, an interesting back story to that and i will come to that in a minute. the second kidnapping was nicholas berg, the young entrepreneur from pennsylvania went to iraq and he was kidnapped in a city, jordanian, and he comes out, this is the introduction of al qaeda into this, he went from jail in a month to pakistan, went to a

refugee camp, the guerrilla group in southern philippines, went to tora bora, and developed his jihadist credentials and most people know this story, to create al qaeda in iraq, he had to assert himself in a vicious war against the shia but kidnap nicholas berg, it was shown on television, thereby introducing al qaeda to the world. at cbs, the day his video was shown and the argument, the national editor and another editor of similar stature, how much of this video are you going to show? i remember the scream.

the fact what we are talking about is absolute power of television and political kidnapping, a form of warfare used by the week against the strong. .. actors like stanley