A Photographic Life-407: The 'Proust Photo Quiz' with Photographer Pete Souza

In this week's episode photographer Pete Souza takes on our 'Proust Photo Quiz'... The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust. Proust answered the questionnaire in a confession album, a form of parlour game popular at the end of the 1890s. The album, titled An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc. was found in 1924 and published in the French literary journal Les Cahiers du Mois. Our 'Proust Photo Quiz' is an adaption of the original text. Pete Souza is a best-selling author, speaker and freelance photographer. He started his career working for two small newspapers in Kansas. From there, he worked as a staff photographer for the Chicago Sun-Times;  an Official Photographer for President Reagan; a freelancer for National Geographic  and other publications; the national photographer for the Chicago Tribune based in their Washington, D.C. bureau; and an assistant professor of photojournalism at Ohio University. While at the Tribune, Souza was part of the staff awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2001. After 9/11, he was among the first journalists to cover the fall of Kabul, Afghanistan. In 1992, Souza published, Unguarded Moments: Behind-the-Scenes Photographs of President Reagan, based on his 5 1/2 years in the Reagan White House. Souza was also the official photographer for the 2004 funeral of President Reagan. His 2008 book, The Rise of Barack Obama, includes exclusive photographs of Obama's rise to power. For all eight years of the Obama administration, Souza was the Chief Official White House Photographer and the Director of the White House photo office. His book, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, was published in 2017. His 2018 book, Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents, tells the tale of the Obama and Trump administrations. In 2021, Souza was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame. In 2022, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Professional Photographers of America. Based on his best-selling books, Souza became the subject of a documentary film in 2020, The Way I See It. The film was nominated for an Emmy. Souza's most recent photography book, The West Wing and Beyond: What I Saw Inside the Presidency, was published in 2022. He has won numerous photojournalism awards and had solo exhibits of his photographs at numerous galleries. He is also Professor Emeritus of Visual Communication at Ohio University. www.petesouza.com Dr.Grant Scott After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby’s, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018. Scott continues to work as a photographer, writer and filmmaker and is the Subject Coordinator for both undergraduate and post graduate study of photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England. © Grant Scott 2026