A view of the West Wing and Washington Monument on West Executive Avenue between The White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C.
44 - a summer at The White House
The moment I stepped through the visitor gates on a Monday morning, 9 a.m. sharp, for my senior college class trip to Washington, D.C., I knew I wanted to work for The White House. Mark Twain once called the Eisenhower Executive Office Building one of the “ugliest in America,” but I was enamored with the fossils in the marble floors, the sweeping spiral staircases, and the view of the West Wing. Fast forward seven months, and I was walking through those security gates as an intern to the White House Photo Office under the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. Over 3 months, I color corrected images to deliver to internal Executive Office teams, curated photos to be exhibited in the East Wing entrance celebrating Pride Month from the massive archive of gallery photos, “jumbos” as they were called, completed a project detailing the history of the White House Photo Office that I presented the Management and Administration Office, and even got to pre-write captions for photos of Vice President Joe Biden for one of his events. I made these personal photos on my iPhone 5s of the little details during my internship to document my experience, to never forget.
I tagged along with the official photographers to Marine I departures, waving the President off for whatever event he was off to, the First Lady’s garden event with local school kids and Rachel Ray, a Medal of Honor ceremony honoring a veteran from North Korea, a dozen different speaker series featuring White House staff, including the First Lady, the Vice President and the President, himself. I saw the joy in staff’s eyes on “Jumbo Day” when the gallery photos of the presidency hung around the West and East Wings were swapped out for recent photos. To witness so much humility, compassion, empathy, and desire to do right by the public will be an impression I’ll never let go.
Through the Photo Office’s responsibility to document history, I drew the parallel between a journalist’s same responsibility, to document history to serve the public. At the end of my internship, I had to gather all my notes in my official journal and turn it into the archivist that would eventually be added to President Obama’s official library. Someday, I’ll visit the library and be able to request the journal from my summer at The White House.
One particularly lucky day, here I was in the Blue Room on a tour as Marine I landed outside on the South Lawn. We weren’t allowed to go close to the windows or move to the next room until the President departed.
The North Portico, facing 16th Street.
The cross hall that connects the East Room and State Dining Room.
Secret Service and the carpet of the Red Room. The uniformed Secret Service agents stationed in the tour rooms are full of knowledge and fun facts about the rooms in which they’re assigned. It’s a special experience to chat with an agent about their favorite parts of the room.
The Green Room.
View of the Kennedy Garden from the East Colonnade, in the East Wing.
Early morning at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building from Pennsylvania Avenue.
I absorbed as many details of the building as possible.
The library of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building is something of dreams.
The Eisenhower Executive Office Building has small little seating areas sprinkled throughout the building. This one was one of my favorites.
The West Wing, as seen through an Eisenhower Executive Office Building hallway.